


Requisitions

by Kahika



Series: Relay Monument Incident [5]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Bad Ending, Chatting & Messaging, Drunken Confessions, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Goodbyes, Gossip, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Grief/Mourning, Horizon (Mass Effect), Makeup, Marriage Proposal, Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker, Masturbation, Medication, Morning After, Photographs, Scars, Voice Kink, Wakes & Funerals, Weddings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 11:18:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 22,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4519896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahika/pseuds/Kahika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Side stories from the Relay Monument Incident universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 2183: Citadel - Presidium · Garrus and Tali

**Author's Note:**

> I realized that I was starting to build up on shorter bits and pieces from in between Garrus and Ashley's encounters, and some of them expand on a few driveby things from the main story, so I figured I'd share even though they didn't feel 'big' enough to me to post as their own stories.
> 
> That said, I _think_ this is skippable; you should be able to go right on to ["Polytrauma"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4534281).
> 
> Later chapters of this are out of chronological order, and some jump through the storyline, so years and main locations are marked in the chapter titles, and [there is now a masterpost of the timeline](http://greenstickered.dreamwidth.org/22542.html).
> 
> Blanket rating to cover the occasional PWP chapter (those will be marked in the chapter titles too) but otherwise it's usually Teen.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emergency chirality allergy meds need to be taken with food. Garrus goes out for lunch with Tali.

"You know, I think it was there," Tali says, waving her feeding tube out at the courtyard. "My friend Keenah and I got shot. Feels like a lifetime ago."

"Once again, I'd like to issue an apology on behalf of the entire Citadel Security force," Garrus says. Hell, he feels kind of guilty about it himself. He's not sure _he_ would have done anything for a quarian suit rat back then.

"The apology means less from someone who's not actually in C-Sec," she points out wryly.

"Does it mean more learning that I start back there next week?"

"A little."

Garrus checks if he has enough of his drink left to take his meds with, then gets the box out of his pocket. Tali looks down at the box on the table as he fishes out two pills.

"Garrus, are you sick?"

"Not _yet_ ," he says, and downs the meds. "Trying to prevent that from happening."

Before he can stop her, Tali snatches up the box and reads the label. " _Keelah!_ Right after Shepard's memorial? Seriously?"

"I wasn't _planning_ on it," he says, though these morning after pills probably say that already. "It just... happened."

She drops the meds back onto the table; he stuffs it back into his pocket before they can cause more of a scene. "You didn't go get drunk with Wrex and Joker, did you?"

" _No_ , Tali, I'm completely sober."

Tali tilts her head and says nothing for a few moments; he assumes she's staring at him. There's a sly note in her voice when she speaks again. "Was it someone I know?"

"I'm not telling you who it was," he says, exasperated.

"Someone at the memorial?"

"Tali."

"Someone from C-Sec?" she tries, sounding a little disappointed.

"You can have some if you stop asking me about it," he says.

She hesitates, and then she almost sounds sad. "What would _I_ need them for?"

"Maybe you'll meet a nice levo boy on your way back to the flotilla," he says. He pauses, realizing there are some things they just haven't discussed. "Or girl?"

"Boy," Tali says quickly. She shakes her head. "It'll take more than meeting a nice boy for me. I have to prepare far more than you do."

He winces. Immune system. Of course. "Sorry. I wasn't thinking."

"That much is clear," she says, gesturing at the box. She tilts her head again, and then says, "Was it Ash?"

His mandibles flare. "Tali -"

"I saw you hanging around," she says. "And after I left, it's not like you knew anyone else there. I'd like to assume that if you were going to have unplanned sex right after a memorial, it would be with someone you already liked."

That last part makes him blink. "How did you even -"

" _Please_ , Garrus. Ever since the lockdown, you two keep staring at each other when you think the other one isn't looking," she says.

"We were that obvious?" he asks, because otherwise he's going to ask when she was staring at him.

"Yes, you were." She folds her arms. "This is some pretty lousy timing, but it took you long enough. Of course, if you break her heart, I have a shotgun."

"It's not _that_ serious," he says with a sigh. It never can be. "Besides, she ships out on a new assignment the day after you go home, and we're not keeping in touch."

"Why not?"

"Did she ever tell you her grandfather was the human general who surrendered at Shanxi?"

Tali inhales sharply. "I thought Williams was a common human family name."

"Her COs picked on her for it," he says, the loathing in his voice directed at every Alliance officer who's ever done her wrong. "She can't _have_ a turian boyfriend." Tali shakes her head, but he finishes up before she can cut in. " _I get it_."

"You both deserve better than that," she says quietly. "You both deserve _more_."

"We saved the damn Citadel," he says sourly. "We _all_ deserve more than a shipwreck and a dead Commander."

"I mean it, Garrus," she says, and sighs. "I wish she'd said something. We should have all taken another week before splitting off."

"Tell that to Liara."

"I don't know how to get through to her," she admits. "It's worse than after her mother died. At least hiding in her research had a purpose back then. This time, I don't think she's going to like what she finds."

"If she finds anything," he says. Shepard was spaced. Her body could be floating through the void for a long time.

"But seriously," Tali adds. "You should spend some time with Ash while you still can."

"You're leaving too," he points out. "I'm spending time with _you_ while I still can."

"You're a good friend," she says fondly. "I'm glad I had you on Team Dextro with me."

"Same goes for you," he says. "Whatever ship you end up on back in the Flotilla, they'll be lucky to have you."

With a flash of the lights behind her mask, Tali gets up to hug him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Conveniently, the chronological next story is actually the next chapter. Treasure this moment.


	2. 2183: Citadel - Bay D24 · Garrus and Wrex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys all see Ashley off.

After Tali's farewell yesterday with the whole squad, Joker, and Adams (Chakwas had already shipped out), Ashley looks lonely on docking bay D24 with only Joker seeing her off directly. Adams' flight had been after Tali's, so he can't be blamed, and she knows he and Wrex are here in the passenger lounge, but it's not the same.

(He said his goodbyes earlier, in her hotel room. There was a lot of kissing and headbutting involved, and a little crying.

(He doesn't want to think about it.)

"So I hear you slept with Williams," says Wrex. "Finally."

His mandibles flare. "How did you -"

"Tali has a big mouth," he says, and then frowns. "At least metaphorically. And you two were holding hands yesterday. Of course, that wasn't as pathetic as the way you've both looked since we got grounded."

Garrus drops his head into his hands. "Did _everyone_ notice?"

"No one actually talked about it until Tali told me," he says. "But probably."

He wonders for a moment if any of the surviving human crew noticed and might be the type to pass it on to Ash's new CO. "Great."

"I don't get it," he says. "Humans are squishy. But whatever generates your mass effect field."

Garrus eyes Ashley and thinks about how some parts of her are indeed squishy, but then in other places she's solid muscle, which isn't the same as turian plating yet is its own kind of turn on.

"I'm gonna miss her," Wrex says unexpectedly. "She was fun, for a human. Fights like a krogan."

"I've never seen her charge someone to _headbutt_ them," he objects.

Wrex chortles. In his peripheral vision, Garrus notices her looking over at them and quickly pretending she wasn't. "I'm trying to give your girlfriend a compliment here."

"I see Tali forgot to mention the part where we're not actually dating," he says.

"Good," says Wrex. "Long distance is for pyjaks. Speaking from experience, someone always cheats." Garrus stares. "I was young."

On second thoughts, maybe he doesn't want to know about Wrex's love life eight hundred years ago or whatever. "I'll keep that in mind."

A woman in Alliance battle dress uniform comes out of the gangway, and both Ashley and Joker salute her. After some words from the woman that his translator doesn't pick up from this distance, Ashley hugs Joker, then picks up her duffel and gun case and follows her into the gangway.

Wrex gives him a thump on the shoulder that's probably meant to be reassuring but with krogan force behind it, just makes him almost fall out of his chair. "What's that human saying? There are other fish in the lake?"

"Something like that," Garrus says. He's right about the meaning, at least. There _are_ other women out there. Women whom he doesn't have to take meds to have sex with and whose careers couldn't be ruined by associating with him. This was probably just the high stakes mission combined with a long dry spell.


	3. EXPLICIT · 2184: Ontarom - Alliance Rapid Response Base 3 · Ashley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You remember a couple weeks ago when you freaked out worrying you came on too strong and said you'd stop writing? Your e-mail came right after I'd just gotten off to your voice, imagining riding you. I got interrupted trying to write back in dictation mode."

There are a lot of differences between working on a Rapid Response Base and working on the _Normandy_ , but Ashley's favorite is that she gets her own room again. Of course, the walls aren't incredibly soundproof (she suspects most of the houses she lived in growing up had more soundproof walls), so she has to take advantage of being stuck on base while her wrist heals. She _is_ quiet enough to do this in a shared bunk on a ship, but the threat of someone catching her with her pants literally down doesn't really do it for her.

Ashley waves off the part of the unit being deployed to some mine on Tungel and those heading off on shore leave, then locks her room, just in case someone comes back early. She takes down her ponytail (since spraining her wrist, she hasn't bothered with her usual bun), remembering how Garrus had liked her hair down, and kicks off her boots before sitting on her bed with her back against the wall.

Maybe it's a little weird to be jilling off to her old squadmate's voice. But if she's reading between the lines right, and she thinks she is, his only objection would be that he can't hear it too.

(If she hadn't already used up her out of system live connection allowance for the month calling home, if she didn't think she'd be scrutinized for contact with a turian, she _would_ call him. If, if, if.)

Failing that, she opens up the audio file he recorded for her. Immediately his flanging voice is in her ear, reading that gorgeous turian ballad, but she switches off her translator, because it's not the words that matter, just his voice, and he sounds better in his native tongue. The Apien Crest dialect that gets put forth as the official turian language is tonal when left untranslated, poetry making it sound almost musical to her untrained ear, and when he hits those harmonies -

Ashley pulls her shirt over her head and trails a hand up her chest, digging in her nails. It's about the same pressure as Garrus trying to be careful with his claws, and while she doesn't _want_ careful, even now that she's reasonably okay with being alive instead of dead, it's all she can manage with short, blunt nails instead of naturally sharp talons. She bites her lip as his voice goes harder and more staccato to describe a battle, the syllables hitting her like assault rifle fire, and fondles her breasts. Most human guys are into boobs for themselves; Garrus, who always seemed a little confused by them, liked to experiment, with a keen and eager sense for what _she_ liked.

She removes her bra. What she liked from him was only the odd squeeze, talons along the underside, teeth over the top and just skimming around her nipples. Her nails are all she has to simulate his sharp touches. She's imagining him here, of course, remembering his rougher palms, but it's not as good as the real thing, and she hasn't figured out a way to mimic necking without feeling stupid and lonely.

His voice smooths out, back to talking about the poem's heroine as she goes forth into battle, and her hands skim down to her waist, which he'd seemed more interested in than her breasts. Some turian thing, she suspects, but `what body parts do turians find hot` isn't exactly the kind of thing a Williams can look up on an Alliance extranet connection. Maybe she'll look it up when she goes home on her mandatory leave. For now she simply runs her thumbs over her abs, remembering how he'd run his teeth over her, wishing he'd bitten down. Imaginary Garrus does, gnawing on her skin the way he had that first time by the Mako, but imagination isn't _enough_ , she needs -

Hurriedly, she shoves down her fatigues and panties in one go. _This_ isn't what Garrus would do, he'd have to go slow and careful so he doesn't rip her clothes, but that's the one advantage of playing solo: The only thing she needs to be careful of is getting caught. She's wet already, only getting wetter as she rests her sprained wrist on her hip to flick at her clit and as his voice in her ear rises, pride on the edge of cockiness in the subvocal. Untranslated, he sounds proud of _her_. She breathes, "Garrus," while no one's around to hear her moaning an unmistakably turian name.

But oh, she'd made him say _her_ name when he came that first time, and she wants to make that happen again. The occasional syllable in this poem almost sounds like _Ash_ , just closer to a _ch_ sound than her softer _sh_ , and by sheer coincidence it's on one of those that she starts fingering herself with her good hand, two fingers heading straight for her G-spot. He's wider than her fingers and indeed, the human guys she's been with, curved a little uncomfortably in her, and ridged all the way up. She wants to ride him one day, to control the pace as he stretches her out and fills her, to have his talons nick her waist as he runs up against her G-spot every inch of every stroke. Biting her lip, she adds another finger and drives them faster. He could never do this with his claws, but the ridiculous poetic side of her libido appreciates the substitution of three fingers for someone with three fingers on each hand.

She's listened to the poem in both languages enough times to know how far in the perspective shifts, and she pauses to switch her translator back on now, because it might be poetry, in character as someone else _about_ someone else, but Garrus is talking about wanting to be with her, wanting to fight by her side: Garrus is talking about love. Even translated into English, his voice drops in both pitch and volume for these last verses, softer and more intimate. It's easy to pretend he's talking to her. If she closes her eyes, she can pretend he's talking to her _here_ , taking pleasure in the fizzing feeling building in her every muscle the way he takes pleasure in a clean headshot.

And then his whole voice gets a hum to it like he's purring, and the fizzing turns into a wave which crashes over her, leaving only bliss in its wake. As best she can, Ashley keeps her hands moving through her orgasm until her wrist twinges, and then she just - breathes, and wipes her hands off on her sheets before resting them on her thighs, and listens to him finish the poem in the darkness.

She's still a little breathless when her omni-tool flares behind her eyelids. Opening her eyes, she finds an e-mail notification on the screen, and once she notices the sender, she rushes to open it, barely pausing to let it send a read receipt (odd, Garrus doesn't usually ask for those).

"Shit," she mutters, reading through the single paragraph, and then reading it again. "No - oh, you stupid turian, no, don't stop writing -"

She hits reply and starts typing, but after a three word subject line and barely two words in the message body, her wrist starts to ache. When James had teased her about not being able to write to her boyfriend, Dr. Silang had warned her not to type too much, or she'd risk making the sprain worse. She hates being grounded for something so small and stupid, so she's had to choose her health and her career over... whatever the hell their relationship is. Garrus would understand, surely.

Today, though, with nearly everyone off-base, she doesn't have to choose. She switches to dictation mode. "G -" She puts in a paragraph break. "Of course I want to write back. We've just been really busy out here, and I've got a sprained wrist; this was the first chance I got to dictate something without half the squad overhearing."

Ashley places another paragraph break, then looks down at his last e-mail, wondering what, or how much, to address. This is what she hates about not communicating in real time: Having the time to second guess her words.

"The only thing I'm uncomfortable with is the distance," she says. "If you meant even _half_ of that poem, I'm flattered, and to hear it in your voice..."

She frowns, and gingerly backspaces the entire sentence, but even that's enough to make her wrist hurt. With that worried an e-mail, it's not enough to talk about the poem; it would definitely be inappropriate to say she just used it as masturbatory material.

"You don't have to apologize for anything," she tries again. "The poem was perfect, I don't mind you bringing up the... good old days, and... I feel the same way."

The holo flashes, receiving a new e-mail, and she opens it with voice commands.

` Understood. I'll stop writing. `

" _No_ ," she groans, going back to her first e-mail draft. She's only just cut and pasted it into a reply when her screen flashes with an incoming local call. Sighing in frustration, she takes the call, but at the same time the e-mail client crashes, no doubt taking her draft with it. "Are you _fucking_ kidding me right now?!"

James is silent for a moment. "Am I interrupting?" he asks, the most unsure she's ever heard him.

 _Yes_ , Ashley wants to say, but she doesn't. "Sorry, not you, my omni-tool just crashed something else I was doing. Shoot."

"Osoba got roofied," says James. "I'm bringing him back to base. Can you let Silang know?"

She can hear their squadmate in the background, and while she can't make out the actual words, there's enough slurred confusion in there to worry her even in her annoyance. "You let Bilal get roofied?"

"One minute," James says defensively. "I looked away from the drinks for one minute."

"Pendejo," she says, and she's not sure if she means him, or the person who roofied their squadmate, or even Garrus for being four relays away and turian. "I'll give Doc the heads up. What's your ETA?"

"Fifteen minutes."

Not enough time for her to dictate a letter, and even if Dr. Silang doesn't explicitly order them to stand watch, James will want to hang out with her so he's close to Bilal. Ashley grimaces. "Got it. See you in fifteen."

"Thanks, Ash. I owe you."

"Damn right you do," she says, and hangs up. It's not his fault, she knows that; if anything it's her own stupid paranoia about the brass and her surname even though she's a low level Alliance hero now. But being unable to get even an hour to figure out and then dictate a letter to her - to Garrus is nothing short of frustrating. Hell, it's a damn miracle she managed to get off before something happened.

She gets dressed again, and paces resentfully as she reopens the e-mail client. Through voice commands, she starts a new e-mail to him, with the subject line `DON'T STOP WRITING`, then frowns down at the screen, wondering what to say in the message body. Eventually, she settles for, "Sorry for the delay. Two more days and I'll write back, I promise."

For a moment, she considers addressing the rest of the apology, but she doesn't have time right now for a dozen stop-start attempts at every sentence. She can bog down her own want and affection with fear any day.

"Send message," she says instead.

The e-mail goes through. She's talking to Doctor Silang when her omni-tool lights up with another e-mail from `G V`, but she waits until she's left the medbay to read it.

` These are going to be the longest two days of my life, Williams. `

Ashley smirks to herself. He waited a month and a half for them to talk. He can wait two days for an e-mail.

She's just not sure if she can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chronological segment is [the text chat transcript](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4342442/chapters/9849197).


	4. 2185: Horizon · Ashley, Shepard, Garrus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I saw you with _Shepard_ and I barely even talked to you."

When her first solo mission is to calibrate Horizon's GARDIAN turrets, Ashley doesn't know whether to laugh or cry or blurt out, 'But the Reapers might learn how to love!'

She doesn't do any of those things. No one believes in Reapers, and she's not going to get grounded like Joker for stomping on the party line. She just says _yes_ and waits for any other objectives.

Her second objective suddenly makes why _her_ make sense: She has to investigate whether Cerberus is behind these attacks. Of course they'd want to send someone who's seen their work already, rather than try to write in someone new, and she's the only Alliance soldier alive who was part of the Cerberus investigations two years ago.

(She's seen the reports saying that Shepard might be back but working for Cerberus. She doesn't want to believe it.)

She asks for training for the GARDIAN turrets. They get an engineer to teach her the quick and dirty way to fix one; she makes her promise to teach her properly when she gets back.

"Yeah, sure," says Engineer Tan. "I hear you've been working on tech certifications."

"Working on it," Ashley agrees. It's not going well. She has her certification in Disruptor Ammo, yes, but with a year of reading and rereading about coding and experimenting on her omni-tool, she's not even halfway to requalifying as an Infiltrator. "But the most complicated tech work I've done in my life was arm a makeshift nuke."

Tan looks up at her and squints like she's trying to remember where she's seen her before. Ashley shifts, aiming for a more relaxed posture than the portraits from the medal ceremony.

She can see the exact moment when the credit chit drops.

"That's surprisingly easy, isn't it," Tan says instead, awkwardly, and she nods. "Good on you for trying to learn more. You don't get many soldiers wanting to learn things from other fields."

"I just want to be more useful to the Alliance," she says, which is what she said to the officers when she asked for tech training, and isn't a lie. It's not the whole truth, either, but _I need to be worth Kaidan's life_ would probably get her sent back to the psychologist, and the geth thing would probably get her written up if not grounded.

( _I need something to work on in all that time I used to spend writing to the guy I couldn't date_ would just be pathetic and embarrassing.)

 

It's hard to feel useful when half the colony won't give her the time of day.

Ashley's a military brat, but on every colony she grew up on, the worst treatment Alliance families got was grudging tolerance. Open disdain for being Alliance is new, and insulting considering how hard she's worked to stop getting open disdain within the Alliance for being _her_.

Cerberus be damned, they should have picked someone else for this assignment. Someone better at holding their tongue, someone better at tech. Someone like Kaidan, if he'd lived.

Someone who wouldn't be so desperate to appear useful to the colonists that they'd react to an unscheduled, unmarked ship by trying to shoot it from the ground with an assault rifle (she feels stupid as she does it).

Someone who wouldn't get themselves bitten by one of those bug things.

Someone who wouldn't be in stasis while half the colony gets abducted.

 

She's completely alone when the stasis field wears off. For a moment she panics, thinking she's back on Eden Prime, but then she realizes how _quiet_ it is, not at all like she's being attacked by geth or anything else. There isn't even the buzzing of those insects in the air.

Ashley rushes through the colony, almost relieved that she's not seeing any civilian bodies, but the bodies of some new creature and something almost like a husk worry her instead, and it's still too, too quiet. Spent thermal clips are everywhere, indicating someone fought through, and the closer she gets to the GARDIAN towers, the more she can hear the hum that says they're active. Someone did her job for her.

She walks in on fucking Delan insulting Shepard, and without thinking she steps in like she would have for any bar fight in the old days. In the old days, of course, she wouldn't have told Delan he was in the presence of a god. She's just... a little overwhelmed, to be honest, by the sight of Shepard _alive_ after going to her damn memorial and grieving her for two years. When she sticks out her hand for a friendly handshake, it's because if she hugs her, she might never let go.

Over Shepard's shoulder, she catches sight of Garrus, half his face scarred and holes in his armor. Her breath catches. She wants to know what the hell happened to him - she wants to headbutt him for both affection and pain. Instead she chooses not to react, chooses not to drag _another_ personal relationship into what's really just an Alliance and Cerberus conflict. But almost every word she fires at Shepard is aimed just as hard at him: _I thought you were dead. You show up after two years and act like nothing's happened? I thought you were gone. How could you put me through that? Why didn't you contact me? Cerberus, are you_ fucking _kidding me?_

(She doesn't _say_ that last one, at least in so many words, but she's thinking it. Garrus being a turian while she's the granddaughter of General Williams is bad enough, but those are things they were born into and can't change. Garrus working for Cerberus is a _choice_ , a hypocritical one given his species and the Cerberus mission, a choice that flies in the face of her most defining choice, a choice that seems tailor-made to hurt her.)

Out of the corner of her eye she can see Garrus holding himself rigid as Shepard tries to defend herself, only interjecting when she mentions the reports, and while that surprises her, she's oddly grateful for his stupid turian professionalism. Shepard being back is enough to deal with without acting like they had a bad breakup in front of her when she'd only really caught the start of their relationship, and in front of a complete stranger who probably has no idea they had one.

She was never the optimist on the _Normandy_. Neither was Garrus. So she's a little insulted when the only other thing that makes him break his silence is some pretty reasonable Cerberus _what if_ s.

"Damnit, Williams," he says. Two years ago he'd been saying, _damnit, Ash_ in very different tones of voice; the step back to using her surname instead of her nickname feels like a slap in the face, especially after she used his first name. "You're so focused on Cerberus that you're ignoring the real threat."

She wants to kiss that defense of Cerberus from his mouth until he forgets about them entirely, wants to throw him to the ground and show him that the real threat to him is _her_. If she doesn't focus on Cerberus, she'll probably break down and say it. So she deliberately ignores that comment, focusing entirely on Shepard. It's easy with Shepard just as defensive.

"I'm an Alliance soldier," she says, as much an attack on Shepard as it is a reminder of why they never made it official. "It's in my blood."

Shepard invites her back. She turns her down, and looks right at Garrus as she says she's "no fan of aliens" even though these days she only really minds this particular alien. He gives her the most hurt look she's ever seen on his face, and she's seen him _grieving_. It's nowhere near as satisfying as she'd thought it would be.

She doesn't say goodbye to him, just Shepard. The last time she said goodbye to Garrus in person, it had been with a kiss, clinging to each other in that Presidium hotel room. This time, she has to end it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of the bigger bits that I waffled over posting on its own for a long time, to the point where unlike everything else in here, it actually got its own war-related title ("Perfidy"). In the end I decided to cut straight to their _post_ Horizon encounter, partially because with all the anticipation of Horizon, I didn't want to disappoint you all with a very near canon scene (only the body language changed). But I thought I'd share it here just for Ash's perspective on it.
> 
> [The first of Garrus and Shepard's Ashley chats](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4519896/chapters/10282002) comes right after this, and then ["Jus Post Bellum"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4490925) is the next full story.


	5. 2185: Normandy SR-2 · Garrus and Shepard (and Jack)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard caught him staring at an old photo of Ashley in the shuttle.
> 
> "Jack would probably be happy to tattoo me with 'Property of Ashley M. Williams'."

"Is that Ash?"

Garrus immediately swipes the holo closed, realizing that the shuttle back to the _Normandy_ probably wasn't the best place to look at her photo (he'd thought Shepard was too lost in thought, and Jack is busy applying medi-gel), but Shepard unbuckles her seatbelt and lunges across the shuttle to open it up again.

"Oh my god, it _is_ Ash!" she squeals, sitting next to him. "In a _dress_ , and she and that guy look so _young_ \- what is this, from high school?"

"Yeah, senior prom," Garrus says grudgingly. He'd looked up the custom on the way to Omega.

"Same Ash as that Alliance bitch we just saw?" asks Jack, with mild interest.

Shepard nods, and sends herself a copy. "That is _adorable_ ," she says gleefully. "Wait, how did you even get that, anyway?"

He sighs, leaning back in his seat. "We used to write to each other, back when I was still with C-Sec. She mentioned her baby sister was getting married but she'd be in uniform instead of a bridesmaid dress, I said I'd never seen her in a dress, and that was attached to the last e-mail she sent me."

"I can't believe you had an Alliance penpal," says Jack.

Most of the time Jack's time in cryogenic stasis depresses him. When he remembers it means she missed all media coverage of the first _Normandy_ , he's grateful, especially as she seems to have no interest in catching up.

"I'm glad you two kept in touch," says Shepard.

"'Kept' is right," he mutters. "I stopped writing when I ran off to Omega. And then she got reassigned, so the address I had for her didn't work any more, and Anderson said her new assignment was classified, and... A year and a half went by."

Shepard frowns sympathetically, and nods.

"Seeing her again just now reminded me," he says. "But I doubt she'll want to hear from me."

"I know what you mean," Shepard sighs.

"You may be working with Cerberus, but at least you were _dead_ for a couple of years," he points out. "I just _stopped_. And we were -"

He shakes his head, unsure how to even explain his very strange relationship with Ashley any more.

Shepard looks sideways at him, studying him. "You were...?"

"Friends," he says softly, even though they'd had _more_. They'd just refused to put a name to it. Shepard raises an eyebrow, but he doesn't elaborate, and she doesn't push it. There are some things that she (and Jack, for that matter) don't need to know, that are irrelevant in a world where he tried to defend their working with Cerberus instead of apologizing and Ashley locked eye contact with him as she claimed to be 'no fan of aliens'.

Jack sits up abruptly, a gleam in her eyes as she looks across at him. "Were you two fucking?"

Garrus stares at her, possibly a second too long to be a convincing denial. Jack glances at Shepard next to him, who's smirking, and she cackles.

"Holy shit, you two were totally fucking!"

" _Anyway_ ," he says. "I can't write to her _now_. I only ever had her Alliance address, so of course it changes whenever she gets reassigned, and who knows how long she'll spend mopping up on Horizon." He sighs. "She probably won't want to hear from me, anyway."

"You were that bad a lay?" Jack says cheerfully. "Put her off alien sex for life?"

"Shut up, Jack," says Shepard, and for once Jack obeys.

 

He's much more aware of his surroundings when he's actually working instead of staring at old photos. So when the doors open behind him, he recognizes Shepard's footstep.

"Can it wait for a bit?" he asks. "I'm in the middle of some -"

"Do you have any more photos of Ash?"

He whips around. Shepard is red eyed, and the holo on her omni-tool's displaying a couple of the official portraits of Ashley from the medal ceremony and some press photos from Shepard's memorial two years ago.

"One," he says, because he does not want to share the selfies she'd sent during their text chat. Abandoning the console, he pulls up the selfie with James on his omni-tool, and sends it to Shepard with a few more swipes. "She had a squadmate who hero worshipped you and looked up to everyone else on the _Normandy_ too; the only reason he treated Ash like a person was because they'd served together before. James. Don't know if that's his first name or surname. He caught her writing to me, she said she was writing to an old _Normandy_ crewmate, and he wanted to send me a photo of him."

"Weird kid," she says, but like him, she only has eyes for Ashley, happy if confused in her Alliance PT uniform.

"They were friends, I think," he says. "He was the only one on her new unit she ever mentioned by name."

"Tell me about her unit," says Shepard.

Garrus hesitates, and then opens up his e-mail client. "Do you want to read our e-mails?"

She shakes her head. "I'm sure you've got private stuff in there. Just tell me about her work."

He opens up that first e-mail from her anyway. "She was on a Rapid Response Base out in the Kepler Verge..."

Shepard leans back on the wall, drinking in every word. She lets out a laugh when he reads Ashley's description of getting to "fly out to shoot people in the face", but looks thoughtful when he finishes.

"From a Rapid Response Base to Operations Chief," she says. "I wonder if they'll give her her commission."

"She deserves it," Garrus murmurs. "I told her she should apply for Spectre candidacy, even started filling in the application form for her, but she wouldn't hear a word of it. Said aliens wouldn't want anything to do with her, and besides, she'd start laughing and punch someone every time she saw the asari Councilor."

Shepard blinks. "What?"

"Ah... In joke," he says, realizing Ashley probably wouldn't want Shepard to know he'd joked he was thinking of the asari Councilor while in bed with _her_.

Rolling her eyes, Shepard comes in for a hug.

"Thanks," she says, without moving away. "I got this e-mail from the husband of someone she served with in the 212, and I just - I really missed her. And those official headshots, the paparazzi shots from my memorial? She looks good, but that's not the way I knew her."

Without thinking, Garrus rests his forehead on hers. "I know the feeling."

Shepard blinks. "Uh, Garrus. What are we doing?"

He pulls back hurriedly, arms dropping to his sides. "Turian affection. Sorry. I taught Ash about it back on the first _Normandy_."

"Affection for you and authority for Grunt," she says with a nod. "Got it."

"Ours are less forceful than krogan headbutts," he says, shaking his head.

"So, more of a -" Shepard steps up to him, tiptoes, and touches her forehead to his.

"Exactly like that," he says, his throat suddenly dry, because now that he thinks about it, the last person who headbutted him outside of a fight was Ashley.

She might also be noticing their closeness, because she suddenly backs off, tapping the photos closed on her omni-tool.

"I should go," she announces. "Thanks for the photo, and storytime, and the cultural lesson."

 _Cultural lesson_. Garrus smiles to himself, but it's a little bittersweet. "I'll be here if you need me."

 

Shepard invites him up to her cabin. As far as he knows, only the old squad have been up here: Liara, Tali, and now him. Tali thinks she's trying to make it feel less Cerberus by letting them in. Of course, the creature comforts don't exactly say Alliance, either.

As he pokes around, a combination of honest curiosity and the C-Sec crime scene inspections that have become habit, he notices a photo of Liara on her desk and flares a mandible in surprise, because they didn't exactly have time to take photos while hunting down the Shadow Broker. Shepard tells him that it was there when she first came aboard and that she managed to reverse search it on the extranet back to some academic thing Liara attended before they met.

"What about you?" she asks. "Any photos in your quarters and not just on your omni-tool? Anyone special in the last two years?"

"Only a special Alliance soldier who probably wouldn't want her photo on a Cerberus ship," he says. Like she said, it's in her blood. He won't disrespect that.

She lets out a low whistle. "Feels like just yesterday you two were making eyes at each other across the cargo bay," she says. "Even after two years?"

"I'm here for her," he says, and Shepard's eyes widen. "Obviously I'm grateful you, Grunt, Zaeed, and Chakwas saved my life, and I did miss you after you died, but... Human colonies, Shepard."

Shepard stares at him for a moment, then says, "EDI, status report on Amaterasu."

" _There are no signs of Collector activity within its system, Shepard,_ " EDI says. " _In general, colonies close to Alliance bases have not been attacked._ "

"Thank you, EDI," Garrus says, and there's the faint tone of EDI logging out.

"I never took you for a romantic, Garrus," Shepard says, her smile bittersweet.

He waves the photo of Liara. "That wouldn't have been how I'd describe you, either."

"I told you, it was there when -"

"You kept it," he points out.

She opens her mouth, and then closes it, smiling fondly at the photo.

"I'm glad she opened up to you again after dealing with the Shadow Broker," he adds, setting the frame back down. "At least _someone's_ love life is working out."

"For now," says Shepard, and he knows she's thinking about their impending trip through the Omega-4 relay.

"For now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually started this way back during my "song lyrics that start with 'how'" phase of alternate titles - this one's would have been "How Did Our Eyes Get So Red" except every time I did it made me laugh.
> 
> The second section of this happens on the way to the Citadel for ["Jus Post Bellum"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4490925) and [Ashley staying in the motel alone](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4519896/chapters/10317906); the third happens after "Lair of the Shadow Broker" and [Liara discovering the Shadow Broker's dossier on Ashley](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4519896/chapters/10315995).


	6. 2185: Citadel - 800 blocks motel · Ashley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Get out. Take the condoms and the dextro meds, you have more use for them than me - _go_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More or less at the same time as the last section of "Jus Post Bellum".

Ashley sits down heavily on the bed as soon as the door closes.

He's gone, and this time it's far more likely that she'll never see him again. When she left for the Rapid Response Base, there was that one in a million chance of running into each other by accident somewhere in the galaxy, or that they'd get deployed close enough to the Citadel to go there for shore leave. Now, he'll have to not only survive whatever's on the other side of the Omega-4 relay but come back before they can even have that chance of finding each other. That's three miracles it'll take. She's been getting a lot of miracles lately - Shepard being alive, running into them on Horizon (Garrus had mentioned a 'Thane'; Shepard could have taken someone else to Horizon instead of him), Garrus walking into I-Nova of all bars - so she's probably not due for more any time soon.

She bunches her fists in the sheets and inhales. It smells like sex and it smells like her and it smells like _him_ , that slightly metallic tang she's tasted on his skin that she never thought she'd smell or taste again and now she never will. Not unless she opens that door and runs after him, tells him to stay, tells him to take her with him, tells him she loves him too, but she knows she can't, won't. It's why she told him to go instead of walking him back, why she didn't let him finish what he wanted her to know: She would have made him stay. And she can't do that. Never mind the impossibility that is their relationship, she can't keep him from a mission to protect her family.

(She's not sure which one hurts more, the knowledge that he still loves her which they'll never be able to do anything about or the order to come back to her which will probably never be fulfilled.)

Flopping back onto the bed, she checks the time in Amaterasu, then connects to a public network, calls her mother, and tries to convince her to move off-planet. It's times like this, one of the hardest things she's ever done, that she wishes she had Shepard's gift of persuasion, because while she hasn't lived on Amaterasu much herself, it's the longest her family's ever lived in one place, and it's where her dad's buried. Mom and the girls have put down roots there. And even she can understand that being only a dozen light years away from Czarnobóg, it seems safer than the colonies in the Terminus Systems.

But the worry in her voice and the real intel she alludes to must get through, because at last Mom agrees to move to Earth, to talk her sisters around. It's hard to move planets at the drop of a hat, of course, so hopefully Garrus and Shepard get the job done before the Collectors can come anywhere near Amaterasu, but even for any other threats down the line, Earth has more Alliance bases and more orbital defenses than any colony. They should be safe there.

" _Is there anything else going on, Ashley?_ " Mom asks gently, once the subject's gotten well away from moving. " _You still sound upset._ "

God, she's pathetic. One afternoon back with Garrus and she's become that sad girl who broke her wrist out of distraction again. She takes a deep breath. There's no use hiding the emotion from her mom, but there's no way she can reveal all the details of the cause.

"I just had to say goodbye to someone I really cared about," she settles for. "He's off on a very important and very dangerous mission, somewhere we're not supposed to send messages." She pauses, then adds in a whisper, "I'm never gonna see him again."

" _Why didn't you tell me you had a boyfriend?_ "

Ashley groans, rolling over onto her side. "Because I _didn't_ , Mom. He was in my squad, and he's - let's just say you wouldn't have approved." Not that she's ever said a word against her alien squadmates from the _Normandy_ , unlike abuela, but she hasn't said a word _for_ them, either.

" _Well, whether I would have approved or not doesn't matter right now,_ " Mom says, a balance of concern and briskness that Ashley admires. " _I'll keep him in my prayers, and I hope for your sake and his family's that he returns safely._ "

The Vakarians. Garrus had said he was patching things up with his dad, but does his father know what he's doing, and why?

How could he sacrifice that for _her_ family?

She takes a deep, shuddering breath of his scent. "That's all I can really ask for," she says. "Thank you."

They chat about lighter things for a while, about Sarah's wedding and the dresses she's looking at, before saying their goodbyes and hanging up. Ashley rubs her thigh absently. They're both starting to chafe in her trousers, the product of turian plating rubbing hard and fast against her skin. The ointment remains in the bathroom with the levo meds, but she doesn't move. That ache between her legs and the hickeys down her chest are proof that this happened, that she didn't imagine him, if only for a few days, but she'll take what she can get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It bugged me for a while that [her old Bioware profile says her family lives on Amaterasu](http://masseffect.bioware.com/me1/galacticcodex/ashley_part1.html) but by the time ME3 rolls around, they're on Earth. And then I rewatched Horizon and I was like, oh god, I know why they're there.
> 
> This is another rare case when the next chapter actually is the next bit chronologically.


	7. 2185: Shadow Broker Base · Dossier: Ashley Williams

Human soldier. Decorated for her survival of the geth attack on Eden Prime and her role in the Battle of the Citadel. Slow career advancement a direct result of grandfather's surrender at Shanxi in 2157. Deep cover operatives in Alliance Navy working to speed up promotion through ranks - could be blackmailed into becoming a double agent by threatening family or threatening to reveal romantic relationship with Garrus Vakarian, as implied by correspondence with Vakarian into 2184 and Vakarian's subsequent attempts to reestablish contact. Continue monitoring communications for blackmail material.

 

### Recent Extranet Search Activity

 **SEARCH:** how to set up extranet alerts

 **ALERT CREATED:** Amaterasu Collectors

 **ALERT CREATED:** Earth Collectors

 **ALERT CREATED:** Omega 4 relay

 **ALERT CREATED:** Shepard Collectors

 **ALERT CREATED:** Shepard Normandy

 **SEARCH:** Scarlet Jane designer bridal

 **SEARCH:** Scarlet Jane designer military discount

 **ALERT CREATED:** Scarlet Jane designer bridal sale

 **SEARCH:** Scarlet Jane bridal knock offs

 **SEARCH:** flower symbolism

 **SEARCH:** flower language

 **SEARCH:** how to give a good wedding toast

 **SEARCH:** how to stop your omni-tool from being hacked

 **SEARCH:** Samesh Bhatia restaurant

 **SEARCH:** Geth Attack: Eden Prime Fundraising Edition how to save entire unit

 **SEARCH:** Geth Attack: Eden Prime Fundraising Edition how to save civilians

 **ALERT CREATED:** General Williams exonerated

 

### Recent Transactions

 **DEPOSIT:** Systems Alliance Navy salary

 **AUTOMATIC PAYMENT:** Transfer to M. Williams, Amaterasu

 **AUTOMATIC PAYMENT:** Donation to Kaidan Alenko Memorial Scholarship fund

 **SUBSCRIPTION RENEWED:** _Galactic Poetry Monthly_

 **SUBSCRIPTION RENEWED:** Spanish language training software

 **VIDEO DOWNLOAD:** _Blasto: The Jellyfish Stings_

 **PURCHASE:** _First Contact: Who Needs It?_ by Kurt Riven

 **RETURN AND REFUND:** _First Contact: Who Needs It?_ by Kurt Riven

 **PURCHASE:** _Geth Attack: Eden Prime Fundraising Edition_ (donation level: Bronze)

 **PURCHASE:** Model _SSV Normandy_

 **PURCHASE:** Vodka and Paragade - three glasses

 **PURCHASE:** Allergy medication for opposite chirality fluid exchange, turian condoms, healing ointment (split payment)

 **PAYMENT:** One night for two adults in 800 blocks motel, Zakera Ward, Citadel (split payment)

 **PURCHASE:** Omni-tool firewall app

 **PURCHASE:** Sniper rifle Scram Pulsar

 **AUTOMATIC PAYMENT CREATED:** Donation to Shepards refugee and orphan charity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first two chapters of "Signal Corps", as implied by the chapter names, are also part of her dossier; the third chapter is part of Garrus'. The Shadow Broker's Video Archives also contain a clip of their kiss in front of Talid in "Jus Post Bellum".
> 
> The only thing Liara did with this information was to order the Alliance operatives to stop trying to get Ashley promoted - she knew that if Ash ever found out the Shadow Broker had been involved in her promotion, she would think she hadn't earned it, and blame Liara.


	8. 2186: Palaven - Cipitrine · Garrus, Vakarian family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Last round of treatments didn't go so well."

Garrus loves the women in his life in very different ways. He'd have thought one of them dying would have made it easier to know what to do when another dies, but no, Shepard's death was just as different from his mother's as the way he feels about them.

Shepard died in a disaster. There was immediate, practical action to throw himself into, half a ship of people to concentrate on looking after instead of himself, Ashley at his side doing exactly the same thing.

His mother dies for three months in palliative care; he supposes he should consider himself lucky that she didn't start deteriorating this badly until after he left the _Normandy_. They watch her go, Dad holding one of her hands, Solana holding the other one and murmuring the sequel to that old ballad where the warrior woman dies in a blaze of glory, him standing in the doorway and wondering why he can't bring himself to come closer to the woman he skipped out on his high school exchange program for.

Terminal illness seems as arbitrary and unfair a way to go as a random attack (though at least now he knows there _was_ a reason), and there are other similarities in how they handle it: Dad's not eating; he can put food in front of him else he'll never think to get it himself, like Liara. Solana can't stop crying; unlike Tali, he can make sure she has tissues and handkerchiefs ready at the drop of a glove. He can't stand to be touched by most people if they initiate it (exceptions: Dad and Solana; Tali, and he probably would have accepted Ashley's touch if she'd tried it before the hotel), but will awkwardly dole out headbutts and pats fine.

And he doesn't know what to say to either his father or his sister, just like he didn't know what to say to anyone from the _Normandy_. Besides the small things of daily survival, there's very little for him to do, since Solana's had funeral arrangements ready to go for months, and their family and friends are eagerly picking up the slack. Thank you, turian duty.

Many human cultures give flowers to the sick and grieving. Flowers are so ephemeral that it seems an odd custom to him. He prefers the tradition in most turian cultures of giving bundles of stones and metals, a symbol of strength intended to sharpen one's claws for the metaphorical battle with pain. Two years ago he'd ordered a bundle on Ashley's behalf, and when Solana had pointed it out to him at home, he'd brought it back to the hospital. It had helped one time; let it help now.

(He'd thought about asking Liara for Ashley's e-mail address, about asking Ashley to pray. She and Mordin are the only people he's outright told about his mother's battle with Corpalis Syndrome. She'd understood how important his family is to him no matter how dysfunctional; she'd wanted to get involved.)

As he packs up Ashley's gift, he thinks she'd know what to say. Ashley would have some comforting words to follow up the action, even if they weren't hers; she'd have some poem memorized already.

But he's not Ashley. He's just the pyjak who gets yelled at by his sister for not caring, until Dad draws her away saying Garrus has his own ways of grieving.

Garrus gives a speech at the funeral and doesn't remember a word of it after; the draft on his omni-tool seems to have been written by another person. He knows he should mingle before the more private burial, knows he should accept the kind thoughts and sympathy from their family and friends, but instead he excuses himself to the restroom and locks himself in an elevator, overriding the door controls to get stuck between two floors. It's the easiest he's breathed all day.

The last time he was in an elevator after funeral rites, Ashley had recited a poem. He looks it up now, searching combinations of `human poetry` and half-remembered lines about captains before he finds it on the extranet, but his slow search makes sense when he realizes that Ashley changed a few of the words for Shepard's gender.

He's reading it for the third time when a request for video sync comes in from an unfamiliar ID with a government prefix. It's tempting to let it go through to vidmail and call back later saying it's his mother's damn funeral, but no one government ever calls him, so he picks up.

Primarch Fedorian's giving him a task force.

It sounds like a token effort, and he fully expects it to be, but it's the best thing that's happened to him since coming back through the Omega-4 Relay.

From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won.


	9. 2186: Earth - San Juan · Ashley, Hackett, Williams family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Sarah and Thomas set a date! Two years from today. Abby says that's plenty of time for me to find a plus one I wouldn't be fraternizing with, but I'm not interested."

Of all the somewhat military families in the galaxy, Sarah's marrying into Admiral Hackett's.

Ashley catches his eye during the ceremony, but she doesn't get to actually talk to him properly until after the photos. It's been months since she's seen him in person, longer still since she's seen him outside work (she's pretty sure the only time was at Shepard's memorial). Still, they're in dress uniform, and he outranks her, so she salutes him.

"At ease, Williams," he says, saluting back. "It's your sister and my great nephew's big day; we're off-duty."

She's never felt truly off-duty with people two or more ranks above her around, but she lets her posture relax. "I'm surprised to see you here, sir. You and Thomas don't have the same surname - when he mentioned his great uncle was military too, I was picturing someone..."

"Samoan?" Hackett says dryly.

Yes. "Older," she offers.

"His mother is my brother's oldest," he says, gesturing over at her. "Thomas takes after his father. I have to say, when I got the invitation, I also didn't expect to see _you_ here."

"It's a small galaxy."

He checks in with her on a _personal_ level, asking how she's settling into her new position as Lieutenant Commander. It's nice, but a little awkward, because she can't exactly ask him what the hell she did to deserve so many promotions since she _failed_ her first solo mission. She asks how he's doing, not expecting nor getting much of a response because his work's above her clearance level, but it seems the polite thing to do, and Shepard would.

 _What would Shepard do_ seems like a weird response to military business when that list apparently includes things like blowing up an entire system.

"Oh, speaking of Shepard, and the _Normandy_ ," he says. "One of your old squadmates approached me while I was aboard. Your turian gunnery officer - Garrus Vakarian."

So he made it back from the Omega-4 relay after all. Ashley's too relieved and too busy holding her relief back from her face to insist that he's not _her_ turian gunnery officer, because though he _is_ , Hackett can't ever know. "Sir?"

"He asked me to tell you something. It was some female turian name, sounded like it started with a C or a K..." It's been two months since he was aboard the _Normandy_ ; she can't really blame him for forgetting. "He said it was the title of a poem."

The one he recorded for her two years ago. "I know the poem he's talking about, sir," she says, her mind immediately racing to the third verse of the poem with rising panic.

"Oh, good."

Hackett looks at her expectantly, and she realizes this is a test.

"It really is just a poem we used to talk about, not a code or anything. I haven't had any contact with him since I saw him and Shepard on Horizon," she adds hastily. No one Alliance has pinged her about their kiss in front of that turian politician, so she's assuming it's a safe lie to tell.

"And before that?"

"Just a few personal e-mails while I was at the Rapid Response Base," she admits.

"Hm," says Hackett. "And what's this poem about?"

"A warrior woman," she says. A warrior woman whom the narrator of the poem is in love with. After she stopped him from saying it on the Citadel months ago? "He's just reminding me to kick ass. _Sir_ ," she adds, mortified by swearing in front of an Admiral.

Hackett actually chuckles at that. "He sounds like a good friend, Lieutenant. He didn't even want me to tell you he'd asked after you at first, didn't want to cause any trouble for you because of your grandfather."

Ashley swallows. He was still looking out for her. "He was, Admiral. But I clearly didn't know him as well as I thought I did if he worked for Cerberus."

"It wasn't exactly a Cerberus ship while I was aboard, but he was still there," he points out.

She makes a noncommittal noise, and thankfully he lets it drop after that. But after that kind of reminder of not only Garrus' survival, but his affections, it's no wonder she's still thinking about him at the reception when her Tía Elena "ay, Ashley"s her being the oldest girl on the Williams side and the only one of her sisters without a date. Sure, she starts trotting out her usual excuses about being military, about fraternization, about not meeting a lot of guys she doesn't serve with, but they're so automatic now that Abby actually wanders off to refill her champagne and she doesn't really hear herself say them.

Instead, her thoughts shift from _Garrus asked Admiral Hackett about me_ to _I could have brought him here._ Abuela died three months ago, and the rest of the family is pretty okay with aliens: One of her cousins brought his asari girlfriend, another brought a quarian, and there's only a little sideeying happening; half of it's probably because the quarian boyfriend had to bring his own food and is refusing both Williams and Taualii hospitality. She'd probably get a bit more scandal for an actual turian, but the danger of being disowned has passed.

"Thomas is military and he met our Sarita," says Tía Elena.

"Yeah, on medical leave," she says. "I don't get my ass kicked as often."

" _Oi_ ," says Thomas, walking past, and Tía Elena laughs.

Abby sits back down with her champagne. "Didn't you say a while back you were going to take your _Normandy_ pilot, or whoever it was from the old squad you were writing to?"

Ashley decides not to correct her about this being two different people. "He's in custody up in Van," she says, and Abby winces. "Didn't really feel like pulling rank to spring him for a couple of days."

Tía Elena shakes her head. "If you can't spring your date out of jail for a weekend, what's the _point_ of being Lieutenant Commander?"

"Higher paygrade and cooler assignments," she says. Really, she's been wondering why she's Lieutenant Commander at all. She deserves the medals, fine. She doesn't deserve this many promotions in a handful of months, and that's straight _fact_ looking at her service record, not survivor's guilt or low self esteem or whatever it was the Alliance psychs cleared her of. "Anyway, I deserve better than a jackass who gets himself court martialed."

Her clearance is high enough now to check Joker's personnel file. Apparently he was working for Cerberus with Shepard. No wonder he dropped out of even his sporadic contact less than a year after the first _Normandy_ was destroyed.

"What _do_ you look for in a man, Ash?" asks Tía Elena. "Maybe there's someone here."

Dating's never been a high enough priority for her to think about what she 'looks' for. "I don't know. Someone who isn't scared of a badass woman and her gun collection," she suggests, and Abby laughs. "Someone who understands how important family is. Good sense of humor. Looks out for people, always has my six." She pauses, surprised by that list, then adds with a grin, "And, you know: Looks good in a suit, sexy voice, great in bed," to more laughter.

It hits her a minute later, as Tía Elena starts speculating about the groomsmen (who, yes, look good in suits), that she just described Garrus. She obviously left out things like 'indulges my inappropriate reactions to grief', 'drops out of contact after ominous messages', 'well intentioned terrorist', 'turian', and 'scars on half his face', but she could easily see him here: Eating the quarian's food, telling her uncles about their adventures looking for Saren, telling her colony cop cousin about C-Sec, dancing with her, looking damn good in a suit, mingling with the family he wanted to protect from the Collectors. He would have caught her eye and grinned when she'd started crying during the ceremony, her public, dress uniform stoicism melting for family the way it hadn't for Shepard; he would have teased her about it later until she shut him up with a kiss.

She's honestly not drunk enough to justify hooking up with the best man. As she kisses him, she misses plates and fringe and talons, and wonders if she's developed a turian fetish.

She looks up cross-species human/turian porn the next day, while she's still on a civilian connection, and realizes she hasn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This occurs a week before ME3, and thus about a week and a half before the start of ["Polytrauma"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4534281).


	10. 2184: Ontarom · James and Ashley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "James got reassigned and I guess I had too many too quickly at his goodbye drinks last night."
> 
> "I dragged her out to my farewell drinks when I got reassigned and you know what she did when she got wasted? She started losing her shit about a turian pendejo who wasn't writing back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to call this one "and now for someone completely different".

"I can't believe you drink Paragade," says James, shaking his head as Ashley sullenly sips on her third vodka and Paragade. "Tupari's the way to go."

"You are not the first person to tell me that," she says. "What's _wrong_ with Paragade?"

He shrugs. "It's a self respect thing."

"You're not even the first person to tell me _that_ ," she says, her smile rather more bitter than he'd expected. "Besides, what do you care about self respect? You're the one trying to get me drunk here."

She's been doing a damn good job getting drunk on her own: He ordered the first round of beers, seeing as this is his goodbye drinks, but she's been buying her vodka and Paragades in between the rounds the guys have been buying. The only thing he had to _try_ to do was get her off-base.

"Whoa, chica, I _completely_ respect you," he says. "You've made where you stand on the fraternization regs muy claro, and that's cool. I'm just trying to get you to relax."

Ashley finishes her vodka and Paragade, and grabs _his_ tequila. He lets her have it. "I am perfectly relaxed."

"Ash, I only got my reassignment to Fehl Prime two days ago, and you've been moping around for two _months_ ," he says. "You frown every time you check your omni-tool or so much as look at a terminal. ¿Qué pasa? Did you break up with your boyfriend or something?"

"He's not my boyfriend," she says, like she's been saying for the last four months.

"Any more," James supplies.

"He was _never_ my boyfriend," says Ashley. "And he's never _going_ to be my boyfriend."

"He's missing out like the rest of us," he says.

"Nah," she says. "Unlike the rest of you, he got a two day stand out of me."

"Lucky bastard," he says, not really meaning it. "How'd he do it?"

Ashley squints at him over the tequila. "What, James, you trying to get your own _not_ girlfriend?

"Nah, I stopped that when I enlisted," he says, and she nods approvingly. "Just curious. I mean, the hell is a two day stand?"

She finishes off the tequila and orders a line of shots before she explains.

"Step one: Get suuuuper drunk," she says, and takes a shot. James remembers with dismay that she'd barely touched her dinner. Muy bien, Vega, take the hungry girl out drinking and watch her drink too much too fast. He starts moving the shots away from her, drinking one so she can't have it. "Step two: Discuss cultural differences in affection and foreplay."

As she downs a shot he's left behind, James blinks. "How many cultural differences in affection and foreplay _are_ there? What, is he an alien or something?"

Ashley's face crumples until she looks up, her expression steely, and swipes back the shots, drinking all three in succession, which is answer enough.

"Holy shit," he says. Their jackass CO on Eden Prime had always cited her past as an excuse for the way he treated her, and for Ash to go fall for an alien anyway... Just for good measure, he repeats, " _Holy shit_."

"It doesn't matter," she mutters.

"Shit, Ash, tell me he's not a turian." He's not racist, but he knows her grandfather was General Williams.

Ashley signals the bartender. "It doesn't matter," she repeats. "Because he isn't _fucking_ writing back!"

She orders another vodka and Paragade. James catches the bartender's eye and tries to shake his head without her noticing.

"We're out of Paragade," says the bartender. James could kiss him.

"With fucking Tupari, then," Ashley snaps, and the bartender shrugs helplessly at James before going to make it. "There's your damn self respect, Vega."

Briefly, James considers starting a Tupari vs. Paragade argument to distract her from drinking, but decides it wouldn't work. "Yeah, well, sounds like your not boyfriend doesn't have any respect for you," he says instead. "What kind of pendejo doesn't write back to his girl?"

"A _turian_ pendejo," she says darkly, and he winces and checks the bar one more time for their superiors. Not that any of them have given her crap about her grandfather that he's seen, but he doesn't want to give them an excuse.

Abruptly, Ashley stumbles to her feet. "You know what I miss about him? Headbutts!"

One of the bartenders serving someone nearby glances over at them. "She's _wasted_ ," she says, looking at James. "Get her out of here before I throw her out."

Ashley spins his stool towards her before he can answer, tiptoeing and almost falling into his arms to headbutt him, no force behind it. The bartender cackles despite herself.

"We used to do this and then just _talk_ ," Ashley says, still in his face. What the _hell_ , turian not boyfriend. This must be one of those cultural differences, because otherwise her taste in guys is weird as shit. "Cultural exchange, dead CO, whatever."

"Talking," James echoes, grasping at straws. "Great. Let's talk, Ash. Let's go talk on base. I wanna call it quits for tonight."

She pouts and pulls away. "Screw you. You drag me out here for _your_ goodbye drinks and now you wanna go home early?"

"I'm just not feeling it," he says. Well, he'll probably come back once he knows she's safe on base. "C'mon, I'll get Osoba to drive."

"No," she says. "I don't have my vodka and Tupari."

He sighs. "They're not gonna serve you, Ash."

Ashley sways, and points in the bartenders' direction. "Screw you guys," she says. "Can't believe I miss _Chora's Den_ right now."

"Hey, Osoba, let's take our girl home," James calls out, before throwing her over his shoulder in a fireman's lift and starting to carry her out.

"Fuck!" she exclaims, punching his back. "Put me down! I'm gonna kick your ass."

"Yeah, that really makes me want to put you down," he says. "Shit, you're heavier than you look."

"That is _exactly_ why you don't have a girl," she says. "But it's all muscle. _Solid steel_."

She elbows his head once they're outside. They struggle, she manages to get in an irrelevant "I've fought like a _hundred_ krogans!" (he doesn't doubt her, but he's sure she fought them with guns), and eventually she gets free of him, but runs off instead of kicking his ass.

"Goddamnit, Ash," he mutters, before calling, "Ash! _Williams!_ "

Even wasted, she's got a head start on him, and she's always been fast; it's no wonder she survived the geth attack at Eden Prime. When Bilal, one of the squad's sober drivers for the night, finally makes it outside ("thanks for the backup!"), he tells him to take the car and do an aerial scan for Ashley. This has to be a new low in skycar use with drunken squadmates.

Fifteen minutes later, James follows the ranting about turians and the glow of an omni-tool to find Ashley sitting in the middle of a back road typing on her omni-tool. Besides the setting, this is a very familiar sight, if one that's become less and less common in the last two months. The whole unit's wondered why she only ever wrote to the guy who's not her boyfriend when she's always vidmailing her family; the popular theory had been the romance of old fashioned letter writing with the convenience of modern technology. The granddaughter of General Williams not wanting to show off her communication with a turian makes a hell of a lot more sense.

"Ash," he says, holding a hand out to her.

"Go away," she says, without looking through the screen. "I'm writing an e-mail."

And damn, but isn't that familiar too. Usually he goes away, because she's hard to distract when she's writing, but this time he stands watch, keeping an eye out for cars until she finishes. It's only then that she takes his hand and gets up.

"C'mon, mija," he says, squeezing her shoulder with his other hand. "Let's go home."

"My home got blown up so badly they can't find the wreckage," she says, but she takes his arm this time as they go to rendezvous with Bilal.


	11. various · Imagine Your OTP

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on [](http://snogfairy.tumblr.com)[**snogfairy**](http://snogfairy.tumblr.com)'s ["imagine your OTP" prompts](http://snogfairy.tumblr.com/post/101245200172/but-imagine-really-imagine-your-otp-leaning).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Needed a break from the drama of the next full story, but unfortunately these two are drama space llamas.
> 
> Only canonical through 2185. The last drabble definitely isn't (I have other plans for that mission); the two with "unknown" time and place _might_ be but I haven't decided.
> 
> Soundtrack for 2183: ["Stay With Me" by Sam Smith featuring Mary J. Blige](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqqOZbMWesI).

> _leaning their foreheads together, completely out of breath after a long kiss_  
>  **2183: Citadel - Presidium hotel**

Resting her forehead against a guy's after kissing isn't a new thing for Ashley. What's new is the added affection the gesture gains with a turian. The implication that they're not just out of breath, they actually genuinely care for each other, is as inescapable as it is true.

It's not just _this_ headbutt, really. It's the way Garrus showed up on her hotel room doorstep, headbutted her, and told her, "We deserve more. Of course a relationship isn't going to work but we deserve more than sleeping together _once_." It's the way he has his talons in her hair, the way she's cupping his cheeks in her hands with her thumbs on his colony markings, the way their bodies are pressed together with as little space between them as possible with their different body shapes, the way they breathe together like they always have and always will. It's the intimacy she never expected with her turian ex-squadmate of all people, and certainly not after she panicked about being seen with him and abandoned him at the pharmacy.

His eyes drop to her mouth, and as he starts to tilt his head, she takes a deep breath and says, "Stay the night tomorrow."

Garrus flares his mandibles, which she's starting to recognize as surprise, but doesn't say anything, still breathing hard.

"Not tonight, Tali should have someone with her overnight and when she wakes up, but once she's gone," she adds hastily. "Check out of your room. Raid the minibar first because mine's all levo, but stay with me."

She's really never thought she deserves anything. But she's starting to think she deserves him, if only until she leaves.

> _waking up together after their ~~first~~ third time_  
>  **2183: Citadel - Presidium hotel**

The room's cold.

Something warm shifts away from him, and without opening his eyes, Garrus whines in his subvocal and flings an arm out, chasing after that heat.

His palm lands on soft human skin and he's tugging Ashley towards him before he remembers last night: Dinner at the nicest dual chirality restaurant in his budget to congratulate her on her new assignment (she wouldn't elaborate on it beyond "one of my squadmates from the 212 got transferred there before the ambush and I was so jealous", but she'd seemed reasonably excited), walking back to their hotel room, sex, cuddles, falling asleep first.

He opens his eyes to find Ashley staring back at him, the fire in her eyes just embers in the morning, looking impossibly vulnerable for someone who didn't cry for her dead CO and the loss of the ship that had become home until after the memorial. Part of him wonders if waking up for the first and last time with someone who's been swearing up and down for two days that they can't have a relationship should be more awkward, but mostly he's just content.

"Hey there," she says softly.

It's such a simple little greeting, but his mandibles splay happily without him meaning to. Not for the first time, Garrus realizes he may be in over his head.

No, it's probably just the endorphins: He's had more sex in the last two days than in the last year.

"Morning," he replies, lifting his hand to stroke her hair.

She presses closer to him and mumbles into his chest, "What time is it?"

"I don't know," he says. "Let me check."

He rolls over to the bedside table and Ashley comes with him, blinking in the sudden light as his omni-tool flares to life.

"0500 hours," he says. She's not due at the Alliance docking bay until 0900 hours. While he's got his omni-tool open, he flicks through to his inbox, but she reaches over him and closes the windows.

"Too bright," she whines, and she settles her cheek into the space just below his cowl. "Do that later. We've got time."

He wraps his arms around her waist and allows himself to pretend they have more. It isn't a lot of time, not when they'll probably never see each other again. But it's time.

> _as grandparents_  
>  **unknown**

Renata Williams Vakarian blinks up at them and wraps three tiny talons around Ashley's finger.

"Careful, kiddo," says Garrus. "Abuela's more delicate than you."

Ashley laughs. "Hey, I've been dealing with _your_ talons all these years. I don't think I have to worry about newborn claws."

"You saw what happened with Des," he says. "They get sharper as they get older. I'm just training her early."

She lifts Renata higher to headbutt her, looking at her seriously. "Your avus is full of -"

" _Language_ ," Garrus says, one claw against her lips but a spark in his eyes. She smirks and bites his claw. "Spirits, Ash!"

To her delight, Renata splays her mandibles, and Ashley plays the _actual smile or just gas_ game with her first grandchild.

Garrus strokes her hair, and then tilts Renata's chin upwards. "She has your eyes."

"That's biologically impossible," she says.

"Intensity," he says. "Not shape or color."

She doesn't see it, to be honest, but she kisses Garrus on the cheek anyway. "I never thought this would happen," she admits.

"Having a turian granddaughter?" he suggests.

"Having a granddaughter," she says. "I didn't even really expect kids. Always thought I'd be KIA, especially once the war started. Giant synthetics, grunt with a gun..."

"Pessimist," he says, but it's fond. "Renata's just our first."

She smiles, and leans into him as he wraps an arm around her. Hopefully the first of many.

> _holding hands romantically for the first time_  
>  **2183: Citadel - docks**

He's not sure how or when it happened in the first place, but Ashley's hand feels so natural in his that Garrus doesn't actually consciously realize it until he notices Wrex smirking at him. It shouldn't, really, not when she has two more fingers than him and this isn't a relationship and never can be, but he doesn't want it to stop.

It's going to stop. She's a Williams and he's turian. They're in public. Any human around them could be Alliance. Any moment now, she'll realize this.

"What?" she says to Wrex.

Wrex gives that ominous chuckle. "Nothing," he says.

Ashley shoots Garrus a confused look, before her eyes widen and she looks down at their intertwined fingers. He holds his breath, wondering if the local spirits (if they exist) would listen to as stupid a wish as _let this woman keep holding my hand_ , but after a moment she mouths something that his translator, not patched for mouth reading, doesn't catch, and she lets go.

It's a day for letting go. First Tali, and now Ashley's hand.

> _falling asleep on the couch_  
>  **2183: Franklin - Alliance spaceport**

Liara hasn't slept since the destruction of the _Normandy_. People have been assuming it's because they're in even less comfortable conditions than the _Normandy_ at the moment - smaller Alliance starships with only sleeper pods, spaceports with benches and only the odd Alliance lounge with a couch - and she's been doing nothing to suggest otherwise, but it's really because every time she closes her eyes, she sees Shepard in the black of space, grabbing at her oxygen line.

So she's still awake to watch Garrus and Ashley sitting on the couch of this Alliance lounge, looking at a datapad together and discussing something too quietly for her translator to pick up. She's still awake as Ashley's eyes shut for longer periods of time before Garrus nudges her and she shakes herself awake again, as Garrus repeatedly leans further into Ashley's personal space before catching himself, as they both finally fall asleep, Ashley's head on his shoulder.

Liara gets up and takes the datapad, then drapes a blanket over them both. The _Normandy_ 's destruction has forged the sexual tension between them into something strange but strong as the rest of the crew relies on them, but it's moments like this where they rely only on each other that she envies them, because these are the moments she should be having with Shepard. Of course, she doesn't envy the way Ashley's family history has her recoiling from Garrus every time she sees an Alliance uniform on someone who isn't from the _Normandy_.

(A very small part of her realizes she should be thinking of Shepard in the past tense, but for the most part, she refuses to accept it. Shepard has to be alive somewhere. She can't lose her mother _and_ her lover so soon after each other.)

Settling in by Tali, Liara starts reading the datapad. If she's not going to sleep, she has to try and piece this together.

> _staring at each other from across the room like the lovestruck idiots they are_  
>  **2183: Citadel - Flux**

The victory party's the first chance they've really had to _breathe_ since getting grounded, since going to Ilos, since the Battle of the Citadel, and Ashley's not really in the party mood yet. She can't help thinking that someone else should be here in Flux with them.

(With them. Not instead of her. It's a slow shift in her thinking and she might backslide tomorrow, but at least for tonight, _this is not her fault_.)

After subtly pouring out a beer for Kaidan, she looks up, and immediately catches Garrus's eye over at the bar. He smiles. She smiles back. He headbutts Engineer Tanaka, and as he starts talking to him, probably explaining the gesture, his eyes find Ashley's again, and warmth spreads through her body to settle into the pit of her stomach.

The noise drops to a dull roar instead of the thumping bass under conversation. His gaze drifts over her, taking in her hair over her shoulder and the silk scarf around her neck, and he grins with his fangs. Despite herself, she blushes, because he's the reason why she's covering up her neck tonight (there hasn't been time to requisition concealer), but she smirks back. She'll be damned if she lets him win this silent battle of wills.

(She'll be damned if she resolves this sexual tension tonight. She wants to, and she doesn't. She _can't_.)

Tanaka leaves to dance with Chase, and Garrus points at a glass on the bar and then at her. She nods, but stays put. She's not really sure what to make of him buying her a drink (or ordering her one, anyway: they're splitting the tab between the Alliance and the Council tonight). Sure, friends and squadmates do that, but maybe it means something else after almost hooking up, or to turians.

Joker, Wrex, and Tali join him at the bar. He quickly gets caught up in conversation with them, but only moments later he's looking back at her, and this time she drops her gaze to her table before the people who know them best can notice. He's not winning, not really.

"Hey," says Shepard, sitting down across from her with her own drink in hand. "You alright, Ash?"

"Just thinking about the people who couldn't be here," she says, because that's how she started out over here on her own, not making eyes at a squadmate. She's not going to admit to wanting a turian.

> _meeting again after being separated for ~~a year~~ two years_  
>  **2185: Horizon - GARDIAN turrets**

Garrus hears Ashley before he sees her.

Even that's a relief after checking every person in stasis, every Collector pod to make sure it's not her and then just worrying that she's been abducted. Seeing her coming around the corner in that same old Alliance issue Phoenix armor? It's like the world stops for a second. She looks like the warrior woman of the turian ballad he recorded her almost two years ago. He actually wants to punch Delan for implying the Collectors should have taken her.

As the mechanic leaves, her gaze wanders the group. That's his girl: Always a good soldier, always checking her surroundings. When she makes eye contact with him, her eyes widen, and his visor informs him her heart rate's speeding up, before she very deliberately turns away to focus on Shepard. At least, that's what her body language says, but besides the amount of time, every word she says could be just as easily be for him as it is for Shepard, from thinking they were dead to to demanding why they put her through that to betrayed disbelief that they're working for Cerberus.

"Garrus... You too?" she asks, sounding more disappointed than anything. "I can't believe the reports were right."

"Reports?" he echoes dumbly. "You mean you already knew?"

It's not what he would have wanted her to say when they finally saw each other again. It's not what he would have wanted to say. But it's what happens, and he knows it's the wrong thing when she goes back to ignoring him to focus on attacking Shepard for working with Cerberus.

"Damnit, Williams," he says, trying to keep it professional in front of Shepard and Jack; if he calls her Ash, it's going to get personal. "You're so focused on Cerberus that you're ignoring the real threat!"

There's tension coiled through her body now as she glances at him looking hurt and furious before Shepard starts to speak. Ashley fights back. She says she knows where her loyalties lie, like his loyalties don't lie with _her_. She says she's an Alliance soldier, that it's in her blood, like that's not one of the main things that's kept them apart.

She looks over Shepard's shoulder at him for a moment before saying she's reporting back to the Citadel, and he wonders if he's remembering the last time they were on the Citadel together, the best two days he's ever had there.

Shepard invites her back, and Ashley looks right at him as she claims to be no fan of aliens. _That's_ what stings: She was proud of Tali like one of her sisters; she pretty much said she loved him back. She's a big fan of at least two aliens.

Or she was, until he screwed it up by going to Omega without telling her.

Or she _is_ a fan of aliens, and just wants to hurt him.

He can't decide which idea is worse.

> _being incredibly, absolutely, blissfully happy_  
>  **unknown: Citadel - Dock 422**

It's crazy how something so simple can make her so happy.

She's on leave and Garrus is between Spectre assignments. They've just been out for dinner at the dual chirality restaurant he took her to the night before she went to the Rapid Response Base years ago, and then they saw the latest Blasto movie. (And almost got kicked out for critiquing it too loudly before _both_ claiming they were on a top secret Spectre investigation.) And now they're sneaking up the C-Sec Tower to the _Normandy_ 's first dock, Dock 422, purely out of nostalgia. _There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word._

The elevator opens and she steps out, breathing in the fresher air high up. "I've always loved the view up here," she says. "Very romantic."

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't trying to inspire a certain mood," says Garrus, slipping an arm around her waist. There's a nervousness to his subvocal she hasn't heard in years, and she glances up at him.

"You've already got the girl," she says. "You don't have to work _too_ hard on the romance."

"But I want to," he says, smiling, and she falls in love with him all over again. He reaches up and strokes her hair back from her face. "I loved you first: but afterwards your love outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song as drowned the friendly cooings of my dove."

Rosetti. One of _his_ favorites now that he's trying to learn English and starting to get into English poetry. And with the lack of input from her translator and his heavy Apien accent, she knows he's reciting it in English. God, she doesn't know what she did to deserve him.

She holds herself back from kissing him until after he finishes, and when they're breathlessly resting their foreheads together, he pants, "Major Ashley Madeline Williams, Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance."

Ashley giggles like she always does when Garrus treats her Alliance rank and Spectre status as part of her full name. She knows it's because she never thought she'd get either of them and he's forever proud of her, but it still makes her laugh. "Garrus Vakarian, Special Tactics and Reconnaissance," she replies.

"Ash, I love you, but I'm trying to do something here," he says, and she grins as she does at every casual reference to his love for her. And then her eyes widen as he drops to one knee, pulls a tiny box out of his pocket, and opens it to reveal a ring. "Will you marry me?"

"Oh my god," she blurts out, and he draws his mandibles together, confused. "Yes, of course!"

" _Thank you_ ," Garrus says, his mandibles fluttering in delight as he gets up and puts the ring on her finger. She examines it: There are different shades in the band, and surrounding the small diamond is cobalt glass shaped like the wings of his colony markings. "It's custom from the guy who makes victory rings: Instead of metals from all the Council homeworlds, it's metals from Palaven, Earth, and every colony your family has lived on."

Her eyes widen. " _Every_ colony?"

He lists them off, from Sirona to Amaterasu. "I checked with your mom," he says, and the thought that he'd do something like that for _her_ when he's a little scared of her mom is amazing.

"This is beautiful," she says, and she doesn't just mean aesthetically. The amount of thought and research and symbolism he's put into this; the combination of their personal histories and their cultural customs.

"Not as beautiful as you," he says.

"You big sap," she says, and then, trying it out: "My fiance is a big sap."

"Yes, he is," he says, grinning. "Oh, I had a flat version made too, so you can wear it with your tags when you can't wear jewelry."

She headbutts him. "You thought of everything."

"Not _everything_ : I haven't picked out our kids' high school yet," he replies, and as she bursts out laughing, he adds, "I didn't think of everything because I want to figure the rest out with you."

"I want to figure everything out together for the rest of my life," she says.

He opens his mouth to reply, but then the elevator door opens.

"Hey," calls a C-Sec officer. "You can't be up here -"

"We're Spectres," they both yell.

Ashley resists the urge to laugh. It's moments like this that she'll remember, that make every fight and misunderstanding worth it.

> _having a mental breakdown after watching the other die_  
>  **2186: Earth - London**

Eden Prime. Virmire. Horizon. Mars. The Citadel coup. Garrus has seen Ashley survive, and survive, and _survive_.

He refuses to believe he just saw her die.

"Ash, come on," he says, rolling her onto her back. "Wake up - who's got levo medi-gel?"

He's never hated their opposite chiralities more than right now, when he's all out and she needs it more than ever. He unclips one of her arm pieces, checks her pulse and gets nothing, checks her breathing and gets nothing.

Shepard ejects two packs from her own kit, then runs a bioscan over her. "Garrus -"

He looks up at Shepard. "Why did I never get training in CPR for humans? I work on a seventy percent human ship."

"She's gone, Garrus," says Shepard.

"No," he says. She took a much more direct hit from Harbinger's beam than the radiation he got, but it's _Ash_ , she's a survivor, always will be. " _No_. She can't - she's not -"

A shadow looms over them, and Shepard flares biotic blue, shielding the three of them with a barrier that she struggles to hold as a Mako slides down it to topple next to them. "You can't stay here," she says.

That makes sense. With Makos and beams still flying overhead, this isn't a safe place to stabilize anyone, let alone the person he loves most in this galaxy.

"Joker," he says.

Shepard gives him that nod that says _I'm on it_ and calls for a pickup. She scowls, but within moments the _Normandy_ touches down nearby. Garrus scoops Ashley up as gently as possible, and then stumbles going to the bay; Liara comes down the ramp to support him, her eyes wide.

"Liara, get him out of here," Shepard says behind him.

"Shepard," Liara says. "Let me come with you -"

"Please, do this for me, Liara," Shepard cuts in. "I will _always_ love you."

Liara's face falls. "I love you too," she says.

She starts rushing him and Ashley into the _Normandy_ proper, barking orders at the Alliance soldiers like they're her agents and she's behind the Shadow Broker vocal distorter. Garrus doesn't resist as they take Ashley off of him and put her on a stretcher for what feels like the longest elevator ride to the medbay _ever_ , just unclips what's left of her greaves and takes her hand.

"Forgive the insubordination, Commander, but your boyfriend has an order for you," he tells her. " _Stay with me_."

Liara scans her, and takes his shoulder. "Garrus. She's already gone."

"No," he says. "Don't tell me that. Chakwas is a miracle worker. Right, Ash? You're going to be okay."

"Garrus," says Liara. "How long has it been since she's had a pulse?"

"I was too busy getting fried to check the time," he snaps.

The elevator opens, and he hurries her to the medbay, murmuring to her all the while that Chakwas investigates, but it feels like a very short time before she says, "Garrus," with a gentleness she's never used on him before.

"I don't want to hear it," he says. "Not unless it's how we can save her."

"I'm sorry," says Chakwas, painfully sincere. "She was killed instantly - there's nothing we can do for her."

He shakes his head. "No. No, this is _Ash_ , you got her up after Virmire, she made it from Mars to the Citadel, she makes it through when no one else does -"

"Garrus, hush," Liara hisses, and she grabs him by the cowl and drags his forehead to meet hers, black flooding her eyes. It's not the turian gesture, it's aggressive bordering on krogan -

\- it's _asari_ , he realizes a second later, as his vision goes black and his nervous system starts to mesh with hers. He fights the meld at first, but then realizes that it actually hurts less, as Liara, less injured than he is, starts to take on some of his aches and pains.

Besides those fleeting conscious realizations, his mental noise is all Ashley, memories of everything from the first time they met to her throwing him spare thermal clips to their last kiss before Shepard's big speech, love and fear and desperation overwhelming him. It's messy, no connection between her voice echoing around him and Liara and the flashes of images, the whispers of remembered sensation along his and now Liara's nerves.

Liara drowns it out, refines and focuses until all they're seeing and hearing is Shepard: Giving that last speech, picking out Garrus and Ashley to go with her to the Conduit, from the ramp of the _Normandy_ , running to the Conduit once more. Shepard, more radiant than when Garrus looks at her. Shepard from Liara's perspective. Liara takes his feelings for Ashley and makes him feel hers for Shepard: Love. Terror. _Fury_ , directed entirely at him.

 _Your mate is dead,_ says Liara, and he seems to feel it as much as he hears it. _And I'm sorry. But you abandoned_ my _bondmate, and now she's going to the Conduit alone, and we don't even know what it does!_

He's gasping when Liara releases him from the meld as abruptly as she forced him into it.

"Get the hell out of this medbay and find a way to help someone who can actually be saved," she says, shaking and angry and _scared_. "Don't you _dare_ dishonor our lovers' sacrifices by doing _nothing_ to help win this war."

He feels one of the marines take him gently by the elbow and steer him out of the room, but he shakes her off and walks on his own. His feet take him on autopilot to Ashley's room, which seems to have been commandeered for triage, but no one gives him a second glance when he drops down into her hangover corner, his knees to his chest.

She can't be dead. Ashley Madeline Williams, Lieutenant Commander in the Alliance Navy, second human Spectre, squadmate, friend, sister, daughter, _his Ash_ , can't be dead. Not when they have a war to win and their homeworlds to save. Not when he hasn't met most of her family and she hasn't met his. Not when their relationship's so long in the making and only just officially begun.

And isn't this what she was talking about on the ship, _if we don't make it_? Isn't this why she kissed him on that London street in full view of dozens of Alliance soldiers? She says she's a realist but she always half-expects the worst, that one or both of them might not make it; he believes despite himself in life after the war and refused to consider the possibility.

He refuses to accept the reality now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ashley's internal monologue in the proposal scene quotes ["A Glimpse" by Walt Whitman](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/180827). Garrus recites ["I loved you first" by Christina Rossetti](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/180859) (he skipped the Italian).
> 
> Bonus for the proposal scene:
>
>> "Do you think Shepard claims Spectre authority when she and Liara go out?" Ashley asks.
>> 
>> Garrus laughs. "No. I think Liara blackmails anyone they get into trouble with."


	12. 2183: Normandy SR-1, docked on Earth - Vancouver · Ashley and Garrus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan had had a memorial too, back on Earth, but his parents had only invited the humans.
> 
> "I never _stopped_ wanting you."

"So I'm thinking about staying on for a while," Garrus says.

Ashley glances at him as he pats a towel to his facial plates. Her alien squadmates had never explained exactly why he was wet, but she suspects it may have something to do with the empty Canadian lager and dextro beer bottles she caught Wrex about to throw out (and then confiscated for recycling). "I thought you were going back to C-Sec after beating Sovereign, and just stuck around for the free ride to Kaidan's memorial." Shepard had mentioned his C-Sec intentions to her at the afterparty when she'd wondered what would happen next.

He nods. "I _was_. And honestly, I think that assignment to hunt down the last geth is varrenshit: It's a token effort to make it look like the Alliance is doing something while not actually believing in the Reapers."

She hangs her dress uniform jacket inside Kaidan's locker, which she's adopted for her own use since security cleared it out and sent his personal belongings to his family. "So why stay?"

His plates shine as he gives her an appreciative look up and down, much the same look he'd given her as he'd told her after the medal ceremony that she looked nice in her dress blues, but all he says is, "Because if there _are_ geth still out there, I'd like to get the job done instead of immediately heading back to a job I quit." His tone's neutral, if carefully so, enough for her to try and believe the geth are the only job he wants to finish. "I want revenge as much as you do."

"No," she says flatly, accidentally betraying her tone by slamming the locker door. "You don't." He only lost a friend to the geth. She lost a whole squad before ever meeting that friend.

Garrus winces. "No, I don't. Sorry."

Ashley waves him off, now annoyed at herself for both shattering that hint of a mood and leaving her medals on her jacket. She opens the locker again to take them off. "You think the Alliance will let you stay? It's not exactly a multilateral mission any more."

"They're letting Tali and Liara stay for it," he points out, putting his towel away.

"Tali's a geth expert," she replies. "And Liara..." _Is in a relationship with Shepard,_ she doesn't need to say, considering Liara's off comforting Shepard right now. Most of the crew's upstairs, and Wrex is talking to Tali in engineering, leaving her and Garrus alone in the cargo bay for the first time since the night they stole the _Normandy_.

"I'll see if I can make a political fuss about the _Normandy_ being half-turian," he says, unconcerned as he picks at the fastenings on his jacket. Despite not attending the memorial, he (and, surprisingly, Wrex) had worn a civilian suit out of respect for Kaidan. He looks good in it, the fabric more form fitting than his armor is. Catching herself watching and remembering what he looks like half-naked, she hurriedly starts setting her medals back in their box. "Besides, Shepard could probably declare she needs us for Spectre business if they tried to kick us off and she wanted to keep us."

Her medals safely in their box, she puts them away in her own locker and gets out a set of PT uniform. "She hasn't said anything about kicking you guys off."

"Good," he says. "I was thinking about asking her for advice on my reapplication for Spectre training."

Ah. Of course he'd want to stay for Shepard the Spectre. Ashley pretends she isn't disappointed. "Shepard didn't apply for Spectre status herself; the Alliance and Udina put her up for it. She's not gonna be much use."

Garrus draws his mandibles together. "I always forget that."

"Not a lot about Shepard getting Spectre status was by the books," she says. She looked into the official process after watching the interview with Al-Jilani.

He shrugs, and finally removes his jacket. She briefly wonders about it taking so long, then rationalizes the more formal jacket being more complicated than the tunic he'd taken off across the cargo bay only weeks ago. "What do you think?"

"I think you should hit the showers," she advises. "You smell like English Bay."

"I meant about my wanting to stay," he says, looking mildly reproachful as he hangs the jacket inside his locker. "Should I?"

 _Yes,_ she wants to say. _You should stay. Stay with me. Kiss me. Finish what we started -_

"I think you should do what makes you happy," she says instead, looking away, because she's not drunk and devastated any more, just sober and tired, and she shouldn't still want him. She _can't_ , if he's going to stay in the squad.

For a long moment, she can feel his gaze on her, before he says, "I hadn't looked at it like that."

"Well, you're freelance, aren't you? Not assigned here," she says, her gaze sliding sideways at him as she tries to return the conversation to safer ground. "So you can do what you want."

He gets out some clothes and a bottle of what she can only assume is some kind of turian bodywash, closes his locker, and leans sideways on the door to look at her. " _Can_ I?"

The look in his eyes says he's not just asking about staying on the _Normandy_ any more, that that's not all he wants, and while the answer again is _yes_ \- "Within reason," she amends, both grateful for and annoyed with the extra distance Kaidan's locker puts between them. She locks both lockers, and pulls away from them - from him. "I'm gonna go put some real clothes on, but let me know what you decide. I need some sniping competition around here," she adds hastily.

Garrus hums in thought. "I don't actually get to snipe very much at C-Sec. You'll be the first person I tell after Shepard." He lets that linger a moment before adding, "Chief."

"Officer," she replies automatically, with a nod from one gunny to another, that's _all_.

(It's one more thing to bury as she clings to the best post she's ever had.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Garrus was actually wearing the same suit he wore to Shepard's memorial - he was just ~~failing at a striptease~~ trying to stretch out the amount of time the jacket took to remove so he had an excuse to stay by the lockers with Ash here, and actually trying to take it off in a hurry after Shepard's.
> 
> Irrelevant to this universe:
> 
>   * omg check out [this Garrus/Ashley fanart I commissioned](http://aelwen-art.tumblr.com/post/137974256077/for-pohutukaryl-of-ash-and-garrus-u3u)
>   * Anyone else doing [the _Mass Effect_ rare pairs exchange](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Spectre_Requisitions/profile)? At least one of the ships I signed up to write is probably blindingly obvious.
> 



	13. 2186: Normandy SR-2 - main battery, evening · Garrus and Ashley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You've got new scars too - they can't all be from Mars."
> 
> "When we've got time, we can give each other the tour."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The night before the asari monastery mission.

Ashley's already in pajamas when he walks into the battery after brushing his teeth, and not just pajamas, but with her face clean of whatever she's started putting on her face, and with a towel somehow piled on top of her head while her hair's nowhere to be seen. The towel's a new look for her, one that he allows himself to admire for a moment before coming to join her, sitting next to her on the floor as she kneels with her elbows on the bed and her hands clasped together.

"I guess I should get some chairs, huh," he says, leaning in close for a moment to scent a combination of Alliance standard issue soap and shampoo and something uniquely Ash. The Alliance took away the crates Shepard used to perch on for their chats, which means Ashley usually either leans on a console or sits on the bed, and the bed makes everything slightly sexual even when it isn't. Still, kneeling on this floor can't be comfortable. "Are your knees supposed to bend that way?"

"One sec," she says without looking at him.

He nods, and wonders where he's seen her in this pose before, because the visual seems faintly familiar. After two mentally timed Galactic Standard minutes, she moves her right hand to her forehead, heart, and both shoulders and finally sits up and turns around to bump her hip into his.

"Sorry," she says, and in that moment he suddenly remembers once catching her doing this at Kaidan's old station on the first _Normandy_. "I just realized I forgot to do that before coming here."

"I'm sorry for interrupting," he says. "What was that, exactly?"

"Um, prayer," she says, her gaze shifting. "Not one of the standards or anything, just... faith, and trust, and thanks, and please look out for my loved ones and my loved ones' loved ones."

As she finishes up, she laces her fingers through his, and he knows she means his family. Touched, he squeezes her hand.

"Thank you," he says. He may not understand it himself, but this is something important to her and she's including his family in it.

She smiles, meeting his eyes this time. "You're welcome. Wanna get off this floor?"

"Definitely," he says, and together they climb up to sit on the bed instead, leaning comfortably together. "Did you just shower?"

"Yeah. I'm in the shore party tomorrow; wanted the extra sleep in the morning."

"I don't know if you're going to find that here," he says dryly.

"I sleep better with something to hold onto," she says with an easy smile. "And I left my teddy bear at home."

He waits, but no further clarification comes from his translator. "Your what?"

Pulling up her omni-tool, she types something into an image search engine that results in a lot of small furry animals. No, wait, he's seen human children holding them - "Children's toys," she says. "I don't actually have one any more, but you hug them. They're a bit softer than big turian boyfriends."

"Ohhhhh," he says, enlightened. "We have cuddling toys too, but they have to be able to withstand careless talons."

"Like everything else for turians," she says.

"Except their small human girlfriends."

"I'm not _small_ ," she grumbles. "I'm average height. You're just huge."

"I'm average height for a turian," he points out.

"And huge for a human."

"And _you're_ adorably short for a turian."

"I'm a normal size and I'm not ador--"

He kisses her, because otherwise this could go on all night, and because she's impossibly cute when she's grumpy about something that doesn't matter. She thumps him once on the chest, but her hand stays there, and she kisses him back, slow and heady and probably trying to prove she's not cute.

When she pulls away, he lifts her hand and turns it to look at the inside of her wrist. "I know we're not doing anything now," while this is a secret and they don't have private showers, "but I do worry I'll hurt you one day. Fledglings aren't the only ones who get careless."

She tries to turn her wrist away from him, but he holds on tight, lifting it to kiss the scar from when she'd broken it.

"I'd rather have a scar from you than from something stupid," she says, watching him.

"No," he says firmly. "I don't want to hurt you that badly, that permanently. Not my kink. Besides, you have more than enough scars already."

There's a tilt to her smile. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

"You _did_ say we'd give each other the tour."

Ashley pauses, her gaze going sharp but uncertain. "Now?"

Hm. Why _not_ now? Unable to come up with a reason, he shrugs. "Sure."

"Okay," she says, after another moment where he can see the gears shifting in her head. "Uh - how do you want to do this? Some of mine are covered by my clothes."

"Same," he says. "We could take them off?"

"Okay."

They step apart just enough to undress. His mandibles flare as he watches her unwind the towel on her head. "Your hair's _inside_ there?!"

She laughs, hanging the towel on the barrier to the Thanix. "Where did you _think_ it was?" He can only shrug in bewilderment. "Silly. Anyway, turn around."

"I've seen you naked before," he says, turning anyway. "I have tried very hard not to forget what you look like naked." Though her body's certainly changed since he first tried to memorize it all those years ago.

"Shhhhh."

Upon reflection, it _is_ weird. Stripping down in front of her not for sex or changing their clothes but simply so she can look at his scars somehow feels far more intimate than any time she's ever undressed him. He's embarrassed about it until he sneaks a peek and notices that Ashley's blushing, which is always distracting in its cuteness.

"Hi, beautiful," he says, mostly as an icebreaker, though it _is_ true.

Just as planned, she brightens, stepping over to him once she's neatly piled her clothes. "Hey, handsome."

He smiles. "Interspecies compliments about your looks are the best kind."

She chuckles, brushing a hand fondly down the edge of his carapace. "It's just you, you know," she says. "I tried actually watching some cross-species porn and if those turian guys were supposed to be hot, I wasn't seeing it."

"Same here," he admits. "About humans, I mean. Not just porn stars: Genetically engineered peak human beauty didn't do anything for me, although that might have been because she was unlikeable even besides the whole Cerberus thing."

"I had to filter it to just Palaven guys and pretend it was you," she says, reaching up to stroke his markings. "That was weird, by the way, that turian porn can be filtered by plate and marking colors."

"Oh, come on, human porn can be filtered by race too," he points out. "Not that I have any idea what you are."

She giggles. "Latina," she says. "Not that it's a race, and I'm actually pretty mixed, but I _know_ it's a filter on those sites, and it's probably your best bet to find girls who look kind of like me." Her voice drops, and she takes his hands and places them on her waist. "Not that you need to any more with the real thing in front of you."

"Mm," he agrees, tucking the information away for future research. "Scars and all."

He presses his mouth to the shoulder she'd broken on Mars, and though she smooths her fingers over his carapace, she says, "You _know_ where those scars came from."

"So?" he asks, muffled against her skin. "I still want to know them."

"I didn't realize you got to know things with your mouth without my telling you to," she says. "I hope you don't lick the Thanix."

Garrus lifts his head, curious. "You kiss these," he says, pointing to his face. A turian woman wouldn't show them any affection.

"Because it's all I _can_ do," she says, frowning. "I wasn't there to stop it - to save you -"

He tugs her closer and hums soothingly until she wraps her arms around him. "That's how I feel about your Mars scars," he says. "But they're a part of you. And when haven't I wanted to love a part of you?"

She pulls back, triumphant. "I've got this one: After Horizon."

"You try to be honest and romantic and you get shot down," he informs the Thanix, in lieu of licking it.

Grinning, she headbutts him. "I get it," she says softly. "And I want to know your scars too."

"Why would I say no?"

They take turns to point out and explain scars: The leg he broke as a baby ("what?! how?" "weak plating or something, I don't know! Mom says she noticed I wasn't using that leg to crawl"), a mishap with a grill on a forgotten colony, an infected scratch in his carapace from a childhood pet, Lynn holding a hair curler ("a what?") to the back of her ear by accident, shrapnel from batarian pirates, a shot on Eden Prime, more shrapnel, a plasma burn on Virmire (he kisses her forehead as well as her scar), a rigged door on Omega that shattered his old visor beyond repair, the Seeker bite that paralyzed her on Horizon, being hit by a table in the worst of Jack and Miranda's fights, falling onto a broken bottle in the Terminus, a stray shot he took on the Collector Base, her broken shoulder and head wounds from Mars... Every scar gets a stroke, a kiss, some small gesture that feels more like healing than medi-gel. He's never taken the time to get to know any ex-girlfriend this way, but he decides he likes it, likes learning how life has marked her body as well as her mind.

"This wouldn't happen with a turian woman," he says, his eyes closed as Ashley traces a gunshot scar. "Especially with the facial scars."

Her hand freezes, and when he opens his eyes, she's looking guarded. "Is that a bad thing?"

"No," he says, and presses his mouth plates to her forehead. "Just different. Reminds me your beauty standards aren't the same as turians'."

Some of the tension leaves her, and she reaches up to trace the scars on his neck. "You mentioned the face?"

"Facial scars aren't considered attractive," he says. "They pretty much say, 'Look at me and how stupid I was to get my plates hurt this badly.' And if they're over your markings like mine... It's a cultural taboo to mess with your markings, so that's one more reason people try not to get their faces hurt."

With a frown, Ashley runs her hand up to his jaw. "So people look at you and they see..."

"A reckless idiot who doesn't respect where he comes from," he says.

She presses her forehead against the scarred side of his face. "I see a man who was strong enough to survive a rocket to the face even though I wasn't there to help him."

He smiles, holding her close. "Cultural exchange."

They don't bother to put their pajamas back on for bed. They simply lie together, hands still skimming each other's skin and plates, and somehow he feels closer to her than after or even during sex.

"Does that mean something or are you just doodling?" he asks, when he notices her tracing a finger along his waist.

Without looking up, she announces, "I'm planning your tattoo."

His hand stops on her arm. "What?"

"'Property of Ashley Williams'. You said your Cerberus friend would do it for you," she reminds him, and he laughs.

"Jack would hate if you called her Cerberus, and besides, she's Alliance now."

"Oh, good, you have another Alliance friend," she says with a smirk.

"I'm getting overrun by you Alliance people," he says gravely, and presses his mouth plates to her nose. "But you're my favorite."

She smiles, and they cuddle in comfortable silence for a while before she says, "Thank you."

"I'm not getting that tattoo," he says.

Ashley giggles, shaking her head. "For showing me your scars."

His mandibles splay, and carefully he brushes one talon over her cheek. "Thanks for listening."

"You too."

"Don't come back with any new ones tomorrow."

She smiles. "I'll try."

He headbutts her. "Wish I could come with you," he murmurs. "Not that I don't think you can handle it - you've always been a good soldier - but I miss fighting with you. Bet you've gotten better over the years, if you're trained for these fancy new certifications."

Her fingers close over the back of his neck, idling where his skin meets his plates. "If you want to fight with me, then don't disobey the CO," she says lazily. "You got your _self_ grounded."

"I know," he says, though he's too grateful Shalmar Plaza didn't come to friendly fire to wish it had gone differently.

She rolls her eyes over a small smile, and pulls the blanket higher. "I missed you having my six too. Tell you what: Once your week's up, first assignment I get to lead, I'm bringing you."

"Can't wait, Commander," he says, and shifts to nip at the corner of her jaw.

"Stand down, Officer," she says, though she sounds closer to giggling than to authority. "I do want to get some sleep tonight."

"You get more sleep in your own room without me waking up early for KP," he points out.

"I sleep _deeper_ with you," she says. "And I'm happier while I'm trying to get to sleep and when I wake up."

Mandibles splaying, he snuggles closer and headbutts her. "Glad it's not just me."

"Take that, broken wrist," Ashley murmurs. "We're good for each other's health."

He chuckles. "A daily dose of Williams is a lot better than vitamins."

"Not if we don't actually sleep," she points out. "I love you, but good _night_."

Garrus closes his eyes, still smiling. "Love you too."


	14. 2186: Normandy SR-2 - starboard obs, morning · Ashley and Garrus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garrus is not the only one with something new on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A morning between "Operational Security"'s later chapters.

"You never used to do that," Garrus says.

Ashley doesn't look away from the mirror, her one open eye focused on her eye shadow. "Hm?"

"Put things on your face," he says, and pauses before adding, "I don't know what it's called, but it's not paint."

"Make up, as a whole," she says. "Different parts of the face, different functions, different things."

Orange light glows in her peripheral vision. "Codex time."

She chuckles, setting down the brush and reaching for her eyeliner. "Not really a turian thing, is it - that cultural taboo about messing with your markings?" Now that she thinks about it, she doesn't think she's seen turians wearing makeup, whether in the real world or in vids.

"That's right," he says. "So seeing this on you took some getting used to; had to get out of that 'spirits, she's putting something on her face' mindset."

"Would've thought you'd be an expert at not applying turian cultural norms to me by now," she says. After all, he likes her hair, which he probably didn't have a frame of reference for before.

"Actually, I pick and choose: Your figure's very turian and you turn me on the most in blue, but I don't mind that you have hair instead of a fringe."

"Huh." Now that she thinks about it, she tries not to apply human beauty standards to him (failing when she notices how thin he is), focusing more on the aesthetic things like his eyes and the arc of his carapace.

"It was just a surprise, that first time I saw you with makeup on, because the last time I'd seen you, the only thing on your face was bruises," he says. "Why do you use it?"

"Why do I personally use it or why do humans use it?"

He's silent for a moment. "You personally."

"I like the way I look with it," she says simply. "I feel prettier. I kind of started because I knew I'd have to clean up nicely for Sarah's wedding, so I thought I'd start trying it out and practising, make sure I didn't feel like an idiot at the wedding. And, well, every moment I was trying not to screw up, I wasn't thinking about you going through the Omega-4 relay and how I'd never see you again."

"I'm going to hug you when you're done," he says, a faint subharmonic of distress to his voice.

"Good," she says, smirking as she swaps her eyeliner for her mascara. "You've realized not to physically interrupt me."

"The extranet says people like to concentrate," he says. "And besides, seems like common sense. I wouldn't touch you while you were taking a shot unless you were in danger, and this requires just as much accuracy."

She wants to grin, but she also doesn't want to move her eyes. "More."

"I'll take your word for it."

Ashley manages to do her lips and set everything without any further questions, and turns around to find Garrus still reading his omni-tool, looking perplexed. She can't help but smile.

She also can't help but ask, "Do you like it?" It was never for him, so his answer won't change anything, but she _is_ curious.

His mandibles spread as he looks up at her. "I like the way you look with and without," he says. "You look beautiful either way."

"Good answer," she teases, though she knows it's genuine.

He comes forward, pulling her into his arms for that promised hug, and she snuggles into him. "Glad I lived and found you again so I could see it."

"Me too."

They stay like that for a long moment, and then he tilts her chin up for a headbutt and studies her face.

"I like the stuff around your eyes," he offers. "Makes them look even more intense."

"That was the plan," she says with a smile.

"And your lips..."

"Kissable?" she suggests.

"I was going to say pink," he says, his mandibles spreading. "And that it tastes weird. But speaking of kissing..."

Giggling softly, she moves in for a kiss, lips moving against his mouthplates until she's breathless. He touches a talon to her lower lip when they're done, his gaze curious.

"It stays on."

"I started buying long wear lipstick long before you came back into my life," she explains, unable to keep the smile off her face. "Before that it kept coming off on my coffee cups."

"Oh, good," he says. "We won't have to worry about it coming off on me."

An old fantasy she'd all but forgotten about suddenly occurs to her, and her grin goes sly. "One of these days, I'm going to put on some crappy lipstick, get you alone somewhere, and kiss you so it comes off..." She pokes a trail down his chest, settling just by the cod piece of his armor. "Everywhere."

Garrus growls, which is enough to send a thrill down her spine even without his backing her against the shelves. "Why would you tell me this before I have to go make tactical decisions and probably end up on a call to the Primarch?"

"Because I live to make your life hard."

He pins her to the shelf by the hips, and though she can't feel him through the armor, the movement says enough. "Not just my life," he mutters, and he bends down to nip at the corner of her jaw.

Ashley angles her neck to give him more access, reaching up to keep him there, but he steps resolutely away.

"Have a good day on shift," he says, adjusting his cod piece.

Head held high and mandibles drawn, he makes for the door. She watches him go with a smirk.


	15. 2186: chat transcript · Garrus and Sarah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm glad Ash has someone who loves her close by. Gimme your comm address, add me on SpaceNook, whatever."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Between the first two chapters of [_Diplomatic Relations_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13254651/chapters/30321201).

> **Garrus Vakarian** (Location: Normandy SR-2)  
>  **Sarah Taualii-Williams** (Location: Citadel)

**S:** hi  (Grinning Face )

 **G:** Hello. Isn't it the middle of the night over there?

 **S:** i'm shadowing an rn who was on pm shift

 **S:** i just got home

 **S:** but i'm not sleepy enough to sleep

 **S:** which is weird because this whole time i've been on the citadel my energy's been shot

 **G:** That used to happen to me every time I did a night shift in C-Sec.

 **G:** Not being sleepy after PM shift, I mean. The Citadel doesn't make much difference to my energy levels.

 **S:** what time is it over there?

 **G:** 1400, Terran Coordinated.

 **S:** where is over there?

 **G:** That's classified, sorry.

 **S:** it was worth a shot

 **S:** what are you up to and if you're online why isn't ash?

 **G:** She's in the shore party for an assignment.

 **G:** I'm up to my mandibles in Hierarchy reports.

 **S:** you worried?

 **G:** About Ash or the fleets?

 **S:** ash

 **G:** I'm trying not to be.

 **S:** why

 **S:** how dangerous is it??

 **G:** On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being getting Blasto tickets and 10 being a Reaper, maybe a 7?

 **G:** She's an excellent soldier and she's with a very good team.

 **G:** But she's had trouble with these enemies before and I don't think she's faced them in a long time.

 **S:** geth?

 **G:** She told me you were smart.

 **S:** the secret is jumping to conclusions!  (Smiling Face With Sunglasses )

 **S:** also she was really upset in her e-mails after eden prime and virmire

 **G:** I can imagine.

 **S:** if i'm offline when she comes back give her a hug from me plz

 **G:** Lots of hugs from Garrus, one hug from Sarah. Got it.

 **S:** loving active duty soldiers is the worst

 **S:** but you guys are cute

 **S:** (Smiling Face With Open Mouth )

**S:** she seems way happier now

 **G:** Glad to hear it, because I'm way happier with her too, so I try to make her happy.

 **S:** how did you two meet?

 **G:** It was when we were looking for Saren. I was running the C-Sec investigation on him before I got told to drop it.

 **G:** I ended up joining Shepard's investigation instead, and then joining her squad.

 **S:** yeah i know THAT i watched the news vids

 **S:** tell me about the first time you saw her

 **G:** Um.

 **G:** Council Chamber. She was a fully armored, fully armed human, carried herself like a soldier.

 **G:** Carrying way too many guns and armor too nice for a merc, so I was guessing she was Alliance.

 **G:** Cautious if not outright distrustful.

 **S:** that's like the least romantic first impression i've ever heard

 **G:** I was a cop. I profile.

 **G:** Can I ask how you met Thomas?

 **S:** he was with the alliance recruiter on career day at my school and i can always use a free pen

 **G:** That's hardly romantic either.

 **S:** yeah i know

 **S:** he came into my work afterschool by coincidence and we started chatting

 **S:** i miss him.

 **G:** I'm sorry I didn't get to meet him.

 **S:** i think he would have liked you

 **S:** you and ash have been into each other for ages right? you should've come to our wedding

 **G:** I would have liked that. She told me when you set a date that Abby was telling her to bring a plus one.

 **S:** did she ask you?

 **G:** No. It was... complicated.

 **S:** you mean you're turian

 **G:** That was the main thing, yes.

 **S:** okay so

 **S:** she's with you even though you're turian and we're williamses and whatever other complicated crap you guys had in the past.

 **S:** and when you were at my place for dinner, that was the happiest i've seen her in literal years.

 **S:** i've been pointing out the cuties in her squads forever because she deserves someone who makes her happy, and it looks like you're it.

 **S:** hell did you notice she called the normandy home? her home isn't where family is or used to be, it's where you are.

 **S:** so if you break her heart, i will break every last plate on your face.

 **S:** and i am a shodan in aikido.

 **S:** which makes me the most dangerous williams when ash isn't carrying.

 **G:** Believe me, I have no intentions of breaking her heart. But understood.

 **S:** good.

 **S:** what intentions DO you have?

 **G:** Well, we're taking it slow, so they're probably just ideas for now.

 **S:** ooh

 **S:** racing ahead are we?

 **G:** Trying very hard not to. I don't want to scare her off.

 **S:** wise move officer vakarian

 **S:** williams women do things when they're ready

 **G:** So I've noticed.

 **S:** tell me about you

 **S:** what do you do when there's not a war on

 **S:** can you provide for the second human spectre

 **S:** what do you like about her

 **S:** what do you do for fun

 **S:** etc etc

 **G:** Seriously, which videos did she use? She recorded a LOT.

 **S:** not telling  (Face With Stuck-Out Tongue )

 **G:** Well, okay.

 **G:** Before the war, I applied for Spectre training twice but got blocked by my dad the first time and never heard back the second. I'm thinking about trying again when we win.

 **G:** I'm also thinking about retiring somewhere warm and living off the royalties from the inevitable war vids.

 **G:** It depends on what Ash wants to do.

 **S:** including her in your post-war plans huh?

 **G:** If she still wants to be included by the time the war ends.

 **G:** I think she's perfectly capable of providing for herself, but I have no plans of being a burden on her.

 **S:** good

 **S:** this is a refugee family

 **S:** we don't need a freeloader

 **G:** Hey, I'm technically from a refugee family too.

 **G:** The last I heard from my family, they were trying to find a way off Palaven.

 **S:** shit i'm sorry

 **S:** hopefully they're just shuffling through refugee camps like my family

 **G:** Hopefully.

 **G:** So, what I love about Ash.

 **S:** bonus points for upgrading the verb!

 **G:** I do love her, so it makes sense.

 **G:** She first got my attention as a squadmate for how good she is in the field. Fast, an excellent shot, a good tactician. I couldn't believe how little real experience she'd had.

 **S:** oh no another military nerd i should have known

 **G:** And then I saw her with the widower of someone in her old platoon, and I realized she was kind, too.

 **S:** yeah that sounds like her

 **G:** She helped my family long before I went on a mission for yours. That was when I realized I was in love with her.

 **G:** She's so strong. I don't know if she ever told you about the first Normandy getting blown up, but she helped keep us going on our way back to the Citadel.

 **S:** she never wanted to talk about it

 **S:** we saw it on the news and all she said when she contacted us was that she was alive and she was fine and she wasn't coming home even though they said she could

 **S:** she didn't sound fine

 **G:** She wasn't fine, but you wouldn't know it to look at her.

 **S:** classic ash

 **G:** I didn't know they said she could come home.

 **S:** trauma leave or whatever it's called

 **S:** she said they offered and she turned it down

 **G:** Huh.

 **G:** It's the offer that surprises me. Turning it down? That's my girl.

 **S:** what a crappy thing to say that about

 **G:** That's not what makes her my girl.

 **G:** She's so willing to learn from her mistakes and from the things that happen to her, and she's always trying to improve herself.

 **G:** I really admire that about her.

 **G:** And then there's things like how funny she is. How beautiful.

 **S:** do turians even find humans attractive

 **G:** That's like asking if humans find turians attractive. It varies.

 **S:** i dunno

 **S:** i think humans pretty universally like turian voices

 **G:** No, I've worked with a lot of humans in C-Sec and on the Normandy and Ash is the only one who's mentioned it.

 **S:** trust me literally everyone's thinking it

 **S:** anyway are humans attractive?????

 **G:** Ash is. I love her eyes.

 **G:** Her hair's nice.

 **G:** And her smile.

 **G:** Her voice.

 **G:** She sounds good in Spanish.

 **S:** omg

 **G:** I usually don't hear the actual language unless I turn off my translator, but the language track that differentiates what language people are using sounds good in the Spanish tone with her voice.

 **S:** things i never knew about turian translators

 **G:** Oh? How do you tell on yours whether people are speaking the same or different languages?

 **S:** we don't

 **G:** What the hell?! I'm getting her an upgrade.

 **S:** please tell me this isn't your idea of fun

 **G:** No, of course not.

 **G:** I like music. And your sister's getting me into poetry.

 **S:** what kind of music?

 **G:** Here, I'll screenshot my most played.

Garrus sent IMG_6037.PNG.

 **S:** hurt me deeper good choice

 **G:** I saw Expel 10 in concert on Omega once.

 **S:** omega?

 **G:** Incredible.

 **S:** lucky that you got to see them but i hear omega sucks

 **G:** The rumors are true.

 **S:** WHAT are those scribbled out soundtracks

 **G:** Guilty pleasures.

 **S:** hmmmmmmm

 **S:** fleet and flotilla lmao

 **G:** Oh no, was that you looking it up?

 **S:** sure was

 **G:** Damnit.

 **S:** and vaenia

 **S:** very naughty

 **G:** Are you even old enough to know what Vaenia is?

 **S:** dude i'm 21

 **S:** should be in year 3 of my degree

 **S:** and a widow

 **S:** i am plenty old enough to know about asari erotica

 **G:** Point taken.

 **S:** though i wish i didn't know my sister's boyfriend liked it

 **G:** I like the music!

 **G:** And the secret, forbidden relationship.

 **S:** relatable

 **G:** In retrospect, a little too much.

 **S:** (Loudly Crying Face )

**S:** okay let's talk about something else

 **G:** Okay.

 **S:** tell me about your family

 **G:** I have an older twin sister.

 **G:** She's a government architect.

 **S:** omg do you guys have the twin thing?

 **G:** Twin thing?

 **S:** do you feel it when she's hurt

 **S:** do you finish each other's sentences

 **G:** No and no.

 **G:** Mom said we had our own language when we were little, though.

 **S:** lolol omg

 **G:** Before you ask, I don't remember any of it.

 **S:** that's hilarious

 **G:** I haven't heard from her since the war broke out. I miss her.

 **S:** damn

 **S:** i've been there

 **S:** not as long tho

 **S:** i'm sorry.

 **G:** Thank you.

 **S:** parents?

 **G:** I'm hoping Dad's with Sol and they're okay.

 **G:** Sol's my sister. Solana.

 **S:** ah yes i just found the family and relationships part of your public profile

 **G:** Our mom passed away a few months before the war. I don't think we deactivated her profile.

 **S:** you didn't

 **S:** mom was gonna take down dad's but we convinced her to leave it up

 **S:** me and abby like posting on it when we want to tell him something

 **S:** sort of keeps him alive for us a bit

 **S:** like they have spacenook up there

 **S:** it just sucks when you get birthday reminders and friendship anniversary slideshows

 **G:** I'll keep that in mind when we discuss it.

 **S:** i'm sorry about your mom

 **S:** at least she's not in the war right

 **G:** I guess

 **S:** what does your dad do

 **G:** He was captain of our precinct at C-Sec.

 **G:** He retired to keep an eye on Mom (she was sick) and dabbled a bit in politics at home.

 **G:** He was a big help in getting the Hierarchy to hear me out about the Reapers.

 **S:** lucky

 **S:** bet if the alliance had heard out shepard or ash we would have been better off

 **G:** Listening is the key part. The Hierarchy heard me and gave me a token task force to make it look like they'd done something.

 **G:** I wouldn't put it past the Alliance to have done the same thing.

 **S:** uuuuuuuugh

 **G:** This has felt a bit like an interrogation.

 **S:** from a former c-sec agent i'm gonna take that as a compliment!

 **S:** nah i'm told i'm good at taking social history

 **G:** Tell me about you, Sarah. I've heard so much about you but this week's the first time we've talked.

 **S:** uhhh

 **S:** did ash ever tell you why i want to be a nurse?

 **G:** Nope.

 **S:** i broke up with an asshole boyfriend by breaking his nose

 **G:** Well done!

 **S:** and i was totally okay with all the blood

 **S:** i watched the paramedics and i was like

 **S:** i could do that.

 **G:** I imagine that's a pretty unique story in your profession.

 **S:** yeah melenis cracked up laughing when i told her  (Grinning Face )

 **G:** Melenis?

 **S:** the nurse i'm shadowing

 **S:** she's asari

 **G:** Right, of course.

 **G:** I used to have a friend named Melenis.

 **S:** used to?

 **G:** She died.

 **S:** sorry.

 **G:** It was a year ago. I'm coping.

 **S:** still. sucks

 **G:** Yeah, it does.

 **S:** speaking of your friends

 **S:** lt lamont told me you guys were friends in c-sec

 **G:** Yeah, when I went back to C-Sec after the first Normandy went down. She wasn't a trainer back then.

 **G:** We knew OF each other before that, but I had other friends then.

 **S:** what happened to them?

 **G:** They got a bit pissed I forgot to contact them while I was on the Normandy, and then afterwards they thought I was crazy for obsessing about the Reapers.

 **S:** wow some friends

 **G:** I don't blame them for me losing touch.

 **S:** wow some garrus

 **G:** Ouch.

 **S:** (Face With Stuck-Out Tongue )

**S:** how'd you end up friends with lamont

 **G:** We actually bonded over thinking the Reapers were real.

 **G:** Or in her case, not thinking Sovereign was just a ship that Saren was controlling.

 **G:** I didn't quite convince her about the rest of them until they hit Palaven.

 **S:** what a weird thing to make friends over

 **G:** After finding out what I did on the Normandy, I wanted people to know, and the Council wasn't doing anything.

 **S:** did you have fun at all or did you just sound like crazy people together

 **G:** She showed me a few tips and tricks with a rifle that I'm still using.

 **G:** And we also have pretty similar taste in food so we were slowly eating our way through the wards.

 **S:** ooh that's gonna be handy

 **S:** my mom wants to thank her by cooking for her

 **S:** when she eventually finds out about you she'll probably want to have you over for dinner and cook for you too

 **G:** Oh?

 **S:** part of getting to know you like she does to all our serious boy/girl/whateverfriends

 **S:** so if you and lamont like the same foods mom can have her taste test for your dishes too

 **G:** Yeah, that would work.

 **G:** You really think she'll want to invite me for dinner?

 **S:** like i said it's what she always does

 **G:** But your partners aren't usually aliens.

 **S:** oh

 **S:** i haven't really seen her around aliens so idk

 **S:** i grew up on human colonies

 **S:** sometimes i'd see her talking to alien staff at spaceports?

 **S:** but that's not someone close to one of us

 **S:** i feel like she would even if just for the novelty

 **S:** not of you being an alien

 **S:** of ash having a boyfriend

 **G:** Hm.

 **S:** hey if she turns out to be terrible i've got your six

 **G:** Thanks.

 **S:** don't mention it

 **S:** ash is so happy with you i can't see why anyone would want to mess it up

 **S:** anyway i'm finally sleepy

 **S:** time for me to turn into a pumpkin

 **G:** What?

 **G:** The fruit?

 **S:** what

 **G:** You're turning into a fruit?

 **S:** omg lol

 **S:** pumpkin is a vegetable

 **S:** and turning into one is an expression

 **S:** it means i'm going to bed

 **G:** How????

 **S:** ok there's this children's story about a girl named cinderella

 **S:** i'm not gonna tell you the whole thing

 **S:** but her pumpkin got turned into a car so she could go to a big party

 **S:** but she had to be back by midnight because after that it would turn back into a pumpkin

 **G:** How did they build a car out of a pumpkin?

 **S:** magic, garrus

 **S:** don't think too hard about it

 **S:** or go think hard about it on your own

 **S:** coz i'm gonna sleep

 **S:** good night

 **G:** Sleep well, Sarah.

 **S:** it was nice talking to you  (Grinning Face )

 **G:** Likewise.

 **S:** offline message me when ash gets back in from her mission

 **G:** Will do.

Sarah has signed off.

 **G:** She's back. Rattled, pushed her shoulder too much, but okay.

Sarah is offline and will receive your messages the next time they are online.

 **G:** Don't worry, I'm here for her.

 

As he closes the chat window, Garrus glances out of habit at Solana's grayed out name in his contact list, and deliberately avoids looking at the time since she was last online. Comms had been mostly restricted to military and rescue ops when he'd left Palaven for Menae, and though working for the government technically makes Solana military, the last he heard, it had been a long time since she'd handled a gun, so she's probably being treated more like a civilian than like someone who needs to be able to get orders. He can't imagine she's getting many architectural briefs with the planet under siege.

This is, he realizes, the longest he's been on the _Normandy_ without talking to her. They'd at least e-mailed on the SR-1, and she'd been the main person he'd video chatted with his generous out of system sync allowance (surprisingly generous for an alien civilian). He'd been too ashamed of the way Archangel had ended - and the scars on his face - to sync while he was with Cerberus, but they'd chatted when he could catch her in the time differences. This time around, he hasn't heard from her at all, whereas he just chatted with _Ashley's_ sister barely a few days after meeting her. Sure, he hopes she'll be his family one day, but it's hard not hearing from his real family.

Sarah had said something about her and Abby still posting on their dead father's Spacenook. He looks at his sister's name again.

> **Garrus Vakarian** (Location: Normandy SR-2)  
>  **Solana Vakarian** (offline)

**G:** Hey. I miss you.

Solana is offline and will receive your messages the next time they are online.

 **G:** I can't wait to see you again. There's so much to tell you.

 **G:** Stay safe.

 

He'd spoken to Ashley while she was asleep and eventually he'd gotten to say it when she was awake and listening. Maybe it will happen again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [CodenameCarrot](http://archiveofourown.org/users/CodenameCarrot/pseuds/CodenameCarrot)'s [All the Emoji](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6580324/chapters/15055576) guide for helping Sarah emote at Garrus - I could not figure out why the fic was cutting off.


End file.
